“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him…” Colossians 1:19 NIV
The heart of our Father is so open in this verse. It pleased Him to have His own fullness/completeness/fulfilment resident within His Son! As this portion of Scripture gives us more and more descriptions of our Lord Jesus, His placement with the Father, as He does His work on the Earth, this is one that solidifies the oneness of the Father/Son/Spirit relationship. All the “fullness” of God dwells in Christ.
When our Father gave the power-of-attorney to our Lord Jesus, He did so knowing that our Lord had all of the Father in Him as well as with Him. John 13:3-5 reads,
“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” John 3:3-5 NIV
Jesus motive and ability to serve His Apostles in this way came from what He knew as He walked this earth. This was before the resurrection, before the exaltation, before the crucifixion – before it all. Yet, He knew what the Father had placed in His body of flesh to accomplish what was required.
So it is for us in Him. As He is the fullness of the Deity (Colossians 2:9), and He lives within us by the Holy Spirit, we present to the world the fullness of the Father in bodily form. We generally are so taken with ourselves, our own sins, and shortcomings, that we do not believe all the provision in us as humans infused with deity. We read the words and then apply them only to Christ, instead of seeing the reason we are told these things.
As we begin to worship Him, not in form or out of duty, but in Spirit and truth, the image of our possibilities and empowerments start to unfold in us. We begin to see what our Father did in and for Jesus, is the same as what He is what He has provided in us.
“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.” Hebrews 2:10 NIV
The emphasis int hat verse today is for us to understand is that our Lord’s purpose was to “bring many sons to glory.” What Jesus did was to enable a reproduction of Himself, so the world would be filled with the glory of the Father – His Sons and Daughters all over the globe empowered as the holy ones in Christ to be and do according to the fullness of their Lord Jesus.
So our motivation for serving is not self-confidence, or a “wanting to do good.” It is instead the fact that we are uniquely empowered to serve one another and the world with the touch and substance of Almighty God.
Lord, we believe, help our unbelief! May we genuinely embrace the fullness of the Father in our Lord Jesus Christ so that we too may express who He is in every aspect of our being!
May this word bless and encourage you – especially in prayer – that we may rise and be and do in the power of Almighty God. Thank you for reading.
Mannaword 