Rom 8:11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (ESV)
1 Corinthians 6:17 But the person who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him. (AMP)
What does it mean to be full? In the last post I talked about how to stimulate hunger. When you are being filled what is going on? Actually I don’t have a definitive answer but maybe something to think about. I know it is much more than metaphorical. When we become aware of the fullness of God we “feel it.” I don’t know if we are giving Him more room to occupy because we are being pruned and healed and flushed of our garbage. I don’t know if we are being stretched to receive more as our minds are renewed. I don’t know if we are just becoming more and more aware of His presence. In the end it probably doesn’t matter but something is going on. Paul says we become more aware of the fullness of God in the revelation of the love of Christ.
Eph 3:19 [That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself]! (AMP)
I like how The Message says it:
Ephesians 3:14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. (MSG)
Jesus makes this curious statement about living water:
John 7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (KJV)
And at another time he says this:
John 4:14 But whoever takes a drink of the water that I will give him shall never, no never, be thirsty any more. But the water that I will give him shall become a spring of water welling up (flowing, bubbling) [continually] within him unto (into, for) eternal life (AMP)
It isn’t a new concept. Look at Isaiah said:
Isaiah 12:3 You will joyfully draw water from the ·wells [springs] of salvation. (EXP)
Isaiah 49:10 They will never be hungry or thirsty, nor will the sun or the burning, hot wind strike them. The one who has compassion on them will lead them and guide them to springs. (GWT)
Isaiah 55:1 “Listen! Whoever is thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money can come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk. You don’t have to pay; its free! 2 Why do you spend money on what cannot nourish you and your wages on what does not satisfy you? Listen carefully to me: Eat what is good, and enjoy the best foods. 3 Open your ears, and come to me! Listen so that you may live! I will make an everlasting promise to you- the blessings I promised to David. (GWT)
It is obvious that we are to be or are being or are already filled with the fullness of God. Check out what Paul says to the Colossians:
Colossians 2:9 For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature]. 10 And you are in Him, made full and having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power]. (AMP)
Colossians 2:11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets. (MSG)
God even gave us supernaturally empowered and gifted people to get us to the full place.
Ephesians 4:11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (ESV)
So here is a theory: We actually have a “second brain” in our gut. I believe that as we are filled this “brain” responds and that is often how we “feel” His presence. It is just a theory. Take it or leave it but here is some scientific stuff to chew on:
Your body contains a separate nervous system that is so complex it has been dubbed the second brain. It comprises an estimated 500 million neurons – about five times as many as in the brain of a rat – and is around 9 metres long, stretching from your esophagus to your anus.
Embedded in the wall of the gut, the enteric nervous system (ENS) has long been known to control digestion. Now it seems it also plays an important role in our physical and mental well-being. It can work both independently of and in conjunction with the brain in your head and, although you are not conscious of your gut “thinking”, the ENS helps you sense environmental threats, and then influences your response. “A lot of the information that the gut sends to the brain affects well-being, and doesn’t even come to consciousness,” says Michael Gershon at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, New York.
Here is what I know about fullness: If we believe we see. If we believe we feel. It isn’t the other way around. I know with all certainty that if we are born again we are filled with the Holy Spirit. I know that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. I know that we are in Christ and He is in us. I know that we are joined in a union like a one-flesh marriage. I know that in Christ dwells the fullness of God and He dwells in me. I also know I can trust God with anything because He is that good. I have faith that any junk I need to purge to make more room, or any distractions that need to go, or any other space-occupying garbage He will clean it out if I let Him. I really like what The Message says about this co-habitation, this union, His presence in us.
Rom 8:9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of Him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, He’ll do the same thing in you that He did in Jesus, bringing you alive to Himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and He does, as surely as He did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With His Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
So let’s all get filled up!!! Everyone is happy when they have a full belly…ha ha.
Yay God!
Lance
alancetotheheart 