An Abundance of Grace

Stormy

In our day, you might say ‘he just couldn’t catch a break’. He started off as kind of a ‘grumbler’, not at all happy about what God had told him to do. Ironically, he came from a small town just a few miles from modern day Nazareth which of course was where Jesus grew up.

Containing or Confessing

Why is the human heart and mind ‘coping’ with Jesus by trying to define Him in these myriad ways? Simply put, to define Him is to put Him in a ‘box’, to ‘contain’ Him. When something we perceive about Him or those we associate with Him bums us out, we can simply adjust our definition and thus His ‘container’. That’s how we remain ‘superior’.

My Brothers

I must have read this scripture a thousand times, literally, and then a couple of days ago, wham. It struck me as shocking that the risen Lord, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, Lord of all, having conquered death and hell and condemned the devil to destruction, having completed His divine mission – He calls the very ones who deserted Him in the garden, He calls them “My brothers”.

Stand

Comparatively, it’s easy to recognize Satan’s work outwardly but not so obvious when his work is inward and most of the time it is. His thought-arrows are deception, hatred, pride and lust, etc. As he influences you with his ‘propaganda’, you become his tool.

Dimensions of Love

And this is where the “fullness” comes in, literally. When He comes in, He brings His “fullness” – infinite love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and so forth. His presence is His fullness. Filled with His fullness means filled with God’s presence and thus all that He is. It’s a spiritual union: For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."