God isn’t nor hasn’t ever been empty. To be God is to have fullness (Col. 1:20)! Understanding God’s self-sufficiency and fullness may be hard for us humans to comprehend since nothing we know on earth is complete in itself. Everything we know requires something from outside itself to exist, grow, and continue. Intellectually grasping the fullness of God conjures up an image of an ant trying to carry an elephant. I don’t think we can imagine needing nothing. Some people struggle with the “why” question with regards to creation. Although we may not know all the reasons why God created the universe we can know that it wasn’t “to meet some unfulfilled need in Himself” as A.W. Tozer commented in Knowledge of the Holy (p.39).

Not only is God full, but He is the source of all fullness.

These words at the end of Ephesians 1 stand out to me. Jesus, through whom God created all things, is the “fullness of Him who fills all in all.” I like to think of God in this way. He must share His fullness wherever there is emptiness because it is the nature of fullness to be a source of fullness. Another analogy describing God illustrates this same dynamic. God is light (1 Jo. 1:5), and light dispels darkness, which of course, is the absence of light. By nature, light shines. These wonderful, hopeful aspects of God’s character have the power to fill people who live in darkness and  emptiness. Consider how God has revealed His emptiness-destroying fullness and darkness-dispelling light.

In Genesis 1 we see God’s fullness overflowing into the emptiness and darkness. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of  God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’;  and there was light” (Gen. 1:1-3). The rest of Genesis 1 displays God’s creative power to destroy the emptiness and dispel the darkness. The fullness of God’s creation reveals His nature. “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). When light appears, darkness flees. This is a spiritual truth that can be seen visibly in creation. Mankind throughout all of history has experienced this glorious truth every single day as the sun rises and darkness runs to the other side of the planet. Therefore, we are without excuse. The God who created all things longs to fill His spiritually empty creatures with His fullness and light.

Fullness cannot be contained.

At what point do you say a container is completely full? When the substance overreaches the boundary of the container, right? Overflow characterizes fullness. Consider this riddle. What is empty yet continually expresses that which fills it? You probably guessed the answer from reading last month’s Chariot of Fire. I’m thinking  of the human heart. From one perspective we are empty because of the Fall. Unregenerate men and women are totally empty of righteousness. From another perspective, they are constantly exploding with what fills them - selfishness. Jesus came to change what fills and overflows out of His people. He fill believers with Himself so that “rivers of living water” overflow from within us toward God (John 4:14) and to others (John 7:38).

Jesus spoke of this condition in man when he said, “The good man out of the  good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart” (Luke 6:45). Mark recorded these words of our Lord also explaining the human condition in sin. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23).

Perhaps you’ve seen what I call “the cup illustration” which illustrates, although inadequately, what you just read. You can easily teach a powerful truth about how fullness overflows. Take a glass and fill it half-way with water. As you hold it in your hand, ask someone to grab your wrist and shake it back and forth vigorously. (Do this where you don’t mind water getting on things). Then ask the question, “Why is everything wet?” The most obvious answer is, “Because someone shook the cup.” However, there’s another revealing answer. “Because there was water in the cup.” The powerful revealing truth is this: Whatever you are filled with is what will come out when you get shook. Fullness overflows. If you are filled with yourself, then self-worship will pour out in anger, bitterness, and blame, just to name a few possibilities. However, if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then love, peace, joy, patience, and the rest of the qualities mentioned in Gal. 5:22-23 will overflow into the lives of those around  you.

What are you filled with when you get shook? Fullness cannot be  contained.

What is your response to the earthquake of the Fall of man into sin?

Your answer to this question reveals what fills you. From the time we arrive as little babes until our last breath, every person is continually being shaken by the power of the Fall. What fills us cannot be contained when shook. Some people explode with anger and blame toward God. Others use the presence of evil as a basis to deny His existence and thus, their responsibility to Him. These people then become their own god and define “right” and “wrong” by their own preferences. Some seek to   anesthetize the pain of their fallenness seeking a fullness from parties, social relationships, vices, money, work, houses and cars. Many people respond to the presence of sin in their lives by filling their lives with good things, happy experiences, and deeds of benevolence. Parishioners, ignorant of God’s fullness and His nature to fill, spend their entire lives reacting to the shaking of the Fall. Bound by the fetters of self-made religion and the traditions of men they strive to assuage their guilt, gain the praise of men and please God, as if God could not be fully pleased without them. All of these people I’ve mentioned react to the Fall of man and reveal what fills them-SELF. “Man-pleasers” is the term I’ve coined to categorize these people. To live for the   praise of men or for the praise of one’s own conscience are one in the  same.

The Apostle Paul contrasted himself with men-pleasers when he wrote, “For am  I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). One is either a man-pleaser or a Father-pleaser in his or her reactions to the Fall of man and the shaking of the soul by sin.

Father pleasers offer true fullness.

Father-pleasers on the other hand place great value on relationship with God through Jesus Christ, the source of true fullness. They find great joy when they or  others have a righteousness derived from God through Jesus’ substitutionary righteousness. When they understand the Father is filled with joy in His Son who lives in them, and the Son is filled with joy in pleasing His Father through them, they are filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This true fullness manifests itself when these people assemble to worship Jesus Christ. The presence of Jesus and His love overflows from their lives, their preaching and teaching, their fellowship, and their singing praises to God. These people are unusual and unique. They live in freedom and peace while grieving over sin, pain, and the sad spiritual state of the church-at-large. In their praying they sincerely acknowledge their emptiness (which you don’t feel is a false humility), but are full of rejoicing in the fullness of Christ (which doesn’t strike you as a “put  on”).

Sadly, assemblies of Father pleasers are difficult to find these days.

Are you filled with the fullness of Christ?

Is Christ at home in your heart? Intimacy with Christ brings the fullness for which your soul thirsts. In knowing and experiencing Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will comprehend the dimensions of the love of God so you can be filled with His fullness. I love the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. I lift this prayer on your behalf before the Father for His pleasure in His Son. “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of  God.

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or   think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:16-21).