Even in emotional suffering Christ is sufficient. There is a great danger of being lured away by worldly philosophies because it causes us to refocus on temporal things, and to lose our desire and vision for God.
I once heard a pastor say, “Once we lose our vision for God, who He is, what He has done through His Son Jesus Christ, we get a vision for something else. God is put on the shelf, an abstraction. Christ’s work on the Cross becomes a footnote in history that has application when I die but is irrelevant now.”
Has this ever happened to you? Have you lost your focus on Christ and begun to look at temporary situations and your present difficulties as all there is?
I want to redirect you today from focusing on yourself, and your situation, the things that get you down, and cause you to feel bad to focusing on Christ in the Bible.
In the NASB the terms “in Him” appear 94 times. The terms “with Him” are there 114 times. If something is mentioned that many times, it has got to mean something! So let us look today at Him and discover some of the realities about Jesus. It is inevitable that we relate some of them to ourselves but it is important that you understand that these things are true about Him regardless of how they do or don’t affect you.
. …in Him you have been made complete… Jesus is able, by virtue of who He is to make us complete. I have said of my husband, “He completes me” and to some degree that is true. However, even with my husband I would be incomplete without the only One who can truly complete me; Christ.
Remember that you are born with that God-shaped void in your spirit. You and I were born sinners, spiritually dead, without life, unable to do anything about it at all. We are helpless and as hard as we may try, as many good deeds as we may do we are still insufficient and incomplete without Christ.
Who else in the history of all the world can make a person complete? No one but Jesus.
When we are complete in Him, we are also immediately positionally secure. This means that no matter how you may feel about it, God says that you are secure.
I recall watching the hurricane recovery efforts in the south a few years ago, and seeing a man being hoisted into a helicopter in the arms of a rescuer. The man had a security line around him and he was being held tightly by the other man, but I can only imagine that he was a little concerned about how secure he truly was as he was lifted hundreds of feet in the air.
The man who is the rescuer knows exactly how secure his charge is. He knows what it takes to rescue him, and he has done all that is necessary to harness the man in. Regardless of how that man being rescued feels, he is safe.
Jesus knew exactly what was needed to rescue you and He went the whole distance. He did not stop short of the necessary sacrifice to secure your eternal destiny. This is why as he hung on the cross he cried, “It is finished!” because all that needed to be done was done.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB)
You and I cannot add nor subtract from that in any way because we did not do it! Our salvation was monergistic meaning it was a work done by One. We are passive in this process because we have been saved by someone else. Just like that man could not get up into that helicopter alone; you cannot get saved from your sin without Christ. You cannot provoke Christ to save you, and you cannot buy His love. He chooses you.
In my opinion, that makes our salvation and regeneration even more spectacular! I have a fairly good estimation of my depravity...I know how dreadfully sinful I can be (and by God's grace I only know in part!) and even then- He loves me and He chose me! ...amazing....
Ours is the great and wonderful story of redemption -our buy back from sin and death. The heart must understand and accept the truth and reality of our rebirth and adoption into the family of God. The cross is our present hope and our future hope. I found grace and mercy there...I pray that if you have not already, you will.