SOUNDING OUT:
Complete But Not Completed

  One of the most difficult truths for people to accept is that they are complete in Christ. The work of God in Christ in us is magnificent, and our acknowledgement of it is vital as we walk with Him.

  We are complete, filled to maximum capacity, in Christ. Our completeness is absolute, and this great reality of life is a springboard from which we can dive into a life of service to God. Just as surely as Christ is the head of all principality and power, we are complete in him.

  To communicate the magnitude of our completeness the Aramaic uses a special conjugation. This fourth conjugation, the eshtaphal, shows the most intensive and extensive form of the verb. We are not just complete; we are completely, completely, absolutely complete. We lack nothing; God has provided for us exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think.

  As born-again sons of God we are completely, completely, absolutely complete. Now our challenge becomes manifesting or demonstrating our completeness. Although we are complete, we are not completed. Paul prayed for the believers to continue to grow and demonstrate their completeness. God has done a complete work in us, but he is not done with us yet. Indeed we are complete, but not completed.

  We are complete, but not completed. God continues to work with us as we manifest and demonstrate our completeness to the world. It may be difficult for to think of something as complete unless it is fixed. Our completeness still allows for growth. Perhaps it may help to use an illustration of a seed.

  A seed, for instance, is complete. It is inert, fixed, perfect in every detail. It is tightly sealed in its rigid case. You can pick it up and examine it. However, the seed is not complete, if by complete you mean completed. The seed has scarcely begun. Its end is to begin. A seed is sealed and complete. But this self-enclosed, walled-around globule has the power of expanding and growing into — a blade of grass, a flower, a redwood tree, a frog, an elephant, a human being. It is not limited; it may reproduce itself many times. It may expand into generations of roses, redwood trees, or human beings.

  Living things, without exception, begin as a single cell. In the living world of which we are part, we typically see things begin as a seed, a cell, an egg, an embryo. Then, cell by cell, it grows. This is a universal rule of the living world. Nothing starts out full-grown. Everything has to grow… we become… our powers develop… our faculties mature.

  God made us complete, but He did not make us with our growth achieved. He made us with the power to grow, and He promises to work with us until the day of Christ. We lack nothing. The full extent of how complete we are in him can only be known when we see him face to face we shall be like him.

  What a day that will be. When we see him face to face we shall be like him. When we appear with him in glory we will demonstrate that we are completely, completely, absolutely complete in him. How exciting and invigorating life is as we realize we are complete and are being completed as we renew our minds to believe and appropriate His Word to transform our everyday living.