You Are Complete in Christ

Have you ever felt like you were forgetting something but can’t remember what it is?   

Like when you go to the store but didn’t write down a list. You’re pretty sure you’ve gotten most of what you needed (or what your wife asked you to pick up!), but you just know there was one more thing to get.   

Or when you’re about to head out the door on a trip but feel like there’s something you haven’t packed.   

Even worse, maybe you arrived at your destination only to realize you forgot your wallet or phone.  

Often, this sense of incompleteness is more subtle.  

When I was a teenager, I didn’t go very long without a girlfriend. At the time, it just seemed like that was what every teen guy was doing.  Reflecting on this as an adult, I realized that I was trying to look better, feel better about myself, and fit in.   

I wanted to feel complete.   

One of the impacts of sin is that we are not all that God designed us to be. We enter life broken by sin, incomplete, and lacking. Naturally, we turn to the acceptance of others to feel complete or fulfilled.   

Drs. Les & Leslie Parrott in their book Relationships say that most people believe one of two lies.  A person may believe that they need another person to be complete.  Or, a person thinks, ‘if the other person needs me, then I’ll be complete.’  Either way, they are basing their completeness (fulfillment) on the fragile basis of another person’s stability and permanence.   

This is why an emotional scene like the one in Jerry Macquire—in which Tom Cruise enters the room to get his wife back and ends his speech with ‘you complete me’—connects with us and moves us.  

We desire to have that sense of completion.  

We desire to be people who are not lacking or missing anything.  

The mistake humans make is looking for that sense of fulfillment or completion in something or someone that is not perfectly trustworthy and reliable.   

The apostle Paul tells us that “in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority” (Colossians 2:9-10). 

The word used here for fullness literally means ‘to cram full.’ It means to complete, fill up and supply perfectly and abundantly.   

Christ is the head of all rule and authority. Therefore, nothing can stop or prevent Him from accomplishing what He wants to do in you and through you.   

When you feel like there is something lacking about who you are or where you are in life, pause and ask God: What it is that I normally seek to fill that sense of lack? 

We all gravitate towards something. Unless we are aware of what that is, we’ll easily give in. 

Dear Saints, anything less than Christ will leave you feeling like something is missing because anything less than Christ fails to fulfill your deepest longings and desires.  

But know this: when you trust Christ as Savior, God’s word tells us that you are now in Christ and Christ is in you. In Christ, God totally fulfills and completes you. You are literally ‘crammed full’ of Jesus.   

Let’s not settle for anything less.