#7 What's A Christian
 

Don't Run on Empty
 

You have been given fullness in Christ.
(Colossians 2:10)
 

    Imagine that you have been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of the richest man in the world. You pull up a chair at a table two football fields long that's piled high with so much turkey, dressing, potatoes, bread, carrot cake, pumpkin pie, mixed vegetables, milk, and anything else you can think of that the table is about to break under the load. Your host tells you to take your fill of anything you see.
  "Thank you very much.@ you say. "Might I please have half a cranberry?@
  Your astonished friend nearly chokes on a candied yam and replies, "Please have all you would like. That's why I invited you! You're hungry, and here is everything you need to get full.@
  "Thank you so very much,@ you say. "Perhaps I will have a sip of water.@
  Ridiculous, we say. Who would ever act like that? If it were us, we'd gobble up so much food they'd have to use a bulldozer to move us out.
    Why is it, then, that when it comes to getting full spiritually, we settle for half a cranberry?
    Paul doesn't want that for us, and in this passage he reminds us that in Christ we have all we need to be all that God wants us to be.
    Not infrequently you'll come across people who say either in word or deed that their lives are impoverished. Sometimes, remarkably, you'll find a believer who for some reason is looking for something else. He is not satisfied. She is not filled full.
    Remember this: The extent to which you need something else to fill you full is extent to which you find Christ deficient. If you find Christ deficient, then you have found something in contradiction of Scripture, which says that in Christ all the fullness of Deity resides in bodily form.
    We've got to decide, Is it true that in Christ we have all that we need?
    You'll find in the church today many people propagating all kinds of things that believers "need.@ Not infrequently these things that Christians "need@ have exceedingly tenuous connections to Christ, "in whom all fullness dwells.@ As soon as someone tells you that you need this, that, and the other thing, ask yourself, Is this in any way diverting my attention from Christ? Is there any sense in which this is perverting the gospel of Christ, which tells me all fullness is in him? If I get into this particular thing, will it in any way subvert the authority of Christ in my life?
    Beware! Scripture declares that in Christ is all fullness, and if you are related to him, you have been given all fullness. We don't need something super-added, extra-plus to Christ. What we need is to daily discover all that we already have in him.
    How much have you eaten off of Christ's banquet table? How full are you?
 

~Stuart Briscoe~