"God's Fulness" (Eph. 3:19b)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/15/2019 9:22 AM

My Worship Time                                                                                      Focus:  “God’s Fulness”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Ephesians 3:19b

            Message of the verses:  “that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.”

            We get kind of a review of what we have been looking at from the first sentence of John MacArthur’s commentary:  “The inter strengthening of the Holy Spirit leads to the indwelling of Christ, which leads to abundant love, which leads to God’s fulness in us.”  I believe that what we are looking at as we review what we have been learning is that one things is added to another as we learned when we studied the second letter Peter  wrote.  “5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6  and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, 7  and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love (2 Peter 1:5-7).”  You can’t have moral excellence until you have faith, and you can have knowledge without moral excellence, and as we see here it all ends up with love, something similar to what Paul is writing about in the verses that we have been studying.  However as we read this in the English versions of our Bible it is hard to pick up in Paul’s writing to the Ephesians, but as MacArthur stated in one of his sermons on this subject it is there in the Greek.

            To “be filled up to all the fulness of God” is something that actually will not happen to its fullest this side of heaven.  We just can’t totally understand this truth while on earth in our earthly bodies.  John MacArthur writes “J. Wilbur Chapman often told of the testimony given by a certain man in one of his meetings:

“I got off at the Pennsylvania depot as a tramp, and for a year I begged on the streets for a living.  One day to touched a man on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, mister, can you give me a dime?’  As soon as I saw his face I was shocked to see that it was my own father.  I said, ‘Father, Father, do you know me?’  Throwing his arms around me and with tears in his eyes, he said, ‘Oh my son, at last I’ve found you!  I’ve found you.  You want a dime?  Everything I have is yours.’  Think of it.  I was a tramp.  I stood begging my own father for ten cents, when for 18 years he had been looking for me to give me all that he had.”

            “That is a small picture of what God wants to do for His children.  His supreme goal is bringing us to Himself is to make us like Himself by filling us with Himself, with all that He is and has.

            “Even to begin to grasp the magnitude of that truth, we must think of every attribute and every characteristic of God.  We must think of His power, majesty, wisdom, love, mercy, patience, kindness, longsuffering, and every other thing that God is and does.  That Paul is not exaggerating is clear from the fact that in this letter he repeatedly mentions the fullness of God’s blessings to those who belong to Him through Christ.  He tells us that the church is Christ’s ‘body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all’ (Eph. 1:23).  He tells us that ‘He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things’ (4:10).  And he tells us that God wants every believer to ‘be filled with the Spirit (5:18).”

            MacArthur goes on to write about the Greek word “Pleroo” which is translated to make full or fill to the full which is seen many times in the New Testament.  What this speaks of is dominance as seen for example of a person who is filled with rage, meaning that rage is dominating him totally.  Another example is that if a person is filled with happiness that means that happiness is totally dominated by joy.  (Probably a better example for us.)  So to “be filled up to all the fulness of God” this means to be totally dominated by God, and with nothing left of our own self or any part of the old man, the old nature, or the flesh as all of these seem to have the same meaning, as it speaks of what we were naturally born with.  We have to be emptied with our self in order to be filled with God.  This does not speak of having much of God and little of self, but all of God and none of self.  John MacArthur writes that “this is the recurring theme in Ephesians.  Here Paul talks about ‘the fulness of God;’ in 4:13 it is ‘the fulness of Christ;’ and in 5:18 it is the fulness of the Spirit.”

            We will close with some different Scripture references that go along with showing us how much God loves us as He will not rest until we are completely like Him.  “2 He [David] said, "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; 3 My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; My savior, You save me from violence’ (2 Samuel 22:2-3).”  “2 “What a help you are to the weak! How you have saved the arm without strength! 3 “What counsel you have given to one without wisdom! What helpful insight you have abundantly provided!”  “7 “He stretches out the north over empty space And hangs the earth on nothing. 8 “He wraps up the waters in His clouds, And the cloud does not burst under them.”  “"The pillars of heaven tremble And are amazed at His rebuke.”  “13 “By His breath the heavens are cleared; His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent. 14 “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; And how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?’”  (Job 26:2-3, 7-8, 11, 13-14)

            John MacArthur concludes “From our human, earthly perspective we can never see more than ‘the fringes of His ways.’  No. wonder David said that he would not be satisfied until he awoke in the likeness of God (Ps. 17:15).  Only then will we know fully as we have been fully known (1 Cor. 13:12).”  “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake (Ps. 17:15).”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can totally understand what Job said about “the fringes of His ways,” as I try and understand more about God.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  To continually be patience in trying to understand more about God and His perfect love that He has for me.

Today’s quotation:  “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them (J. Hudson Taylor).”