“And in Christ, you have been brought to fullness”
(Colossians 2:10)
I have a question for you. If God told you that he would change one thing in your life, what would it be? Your looks or shape of your body? The family or financial situation you struggle with? Or maybe what you want to change is something more concrete, like your home or car.
It all comes down to a spirit of want. We want something we either don’t have or can’t have. We want change that we have no control over. And that want in our life descends into a spirit of discontent, desperation, unhappiness, regret and longing. Does any of that sound like the mental and emotion state you find yourself in right now?
The wants we have in life tell us that we believe we are incomplete. Even as followers of Jesus Christ, many of us live as if we are deficient. Always wanting yet never receiving what we want leaves a huge void in our souls.
But here’s the good news, and it comes from a special sacrifice the Old Testament teaches us about. It is called the Shalem Sacrifice. It means “to make complete.” Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all the sacrifices of the bible, including the sacrifice of Shalem. Because he is the ultimate sacrifice for our sin, we can cease living as if we are not complete. He died not only to save us from sin, but to make us complete in him. That means everything about us is also complete. Every part of our life is complete. Every person that he allows into our life brings us completeness.
So how do we move from want to completeness? First thing we need to do is to stop focusing on what we don’t have. Perhaps we don’t have it because it would do damage in our life. We also need to stop focusing on what we have lost. Focusing on our losses will rob our souls of the goodness God gives us. We lost our youngest son eleven years ago. If I kept focusing on that loss, each new day would be a new day of mourning rather than a day of God’s fresh blessings.
The closer we draw to Christ, the more complete we will be. For we will realize he is the completion of the Shalem Sacrifice that makes us whole and complete. I encourage each of us to cease focusing on what we don’t have and make a commitment to Christ that we will focus on the goodness of all he has given us. Perhaps for many of us, it is time to stop trying to change what God does not want changed.
Darlene