Living Full and Dying Empty
23 Mar 2010 | Karl Martin | Posted in FlyNo Comments
So we have come to the end of a series that we have called Fly, and we closed with a number of personal testimonies to the way in which Father God has been at work in so many lives. It was so encouraging!
BUT…
I want MORE!
I know it sounds greedy, but I want more. I want more of God, more of his power, more of his love. I want to co-operate more with what God is doing in the world and represent him better. I want more. I want to walk in my inheritance, I want to live full – and because I have then given myself away so completely, to die empty.
God wants more for you! Have you ever considered that although you have so much in Jesus, God still has more for you. More for you to enjoy, more for you to participate in. More!
In the first part of Ephesians 1, the Apostle Paul explains the wonderful identity of the believer, declaring them in verse 13 to be “included in Christ” and “marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit”.
In verses 15-23 he goes on to write:
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Paul prays that they might have more!
Greater knowledge - He prays that they will know the Father better. God wants you to have an increased intimacy with him. To walk with him, to operate out of the security and privilege of sonship. He helps us realize that relationship with Father God is an experience, it’s to know him with our hearts.
Greater Power – Paul prays that we might know and move in his power. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in us. This power is a missional, supernatural power and it is for us – in us. This power makes it possible for ordinary believers to continue the work of Jesus.
Do you want MORE?!
Because I do!
In fact the people of this More – they are the church, the body of Christ. Paul describes the body as “the fullness of Christ”. There is nothing in Jesus that is not in us – power, calling, anointing, authority. As we know the Father, as we appropriate the power of the Son, as we are filled with his Spirit – we are the body of Christ.
And as the body of Christ, as we look increasingly like Jesus, we become the transformation that this world needs. Do you want more? He always has more for us!
He wants us to be full – full of him. To live full and to die empty.
Why don’t you ask him for more and make it your ambition to do so daily? “Father, let us live full and die empty.”
Some questions for your small group if you have time:
- We cannot embrace the kingdom unless we know the King. What difference does it make to the way we live when our love for Jesus and relationship with him is strong
- Jesus is indivisible from his church and he still loves it – it’s his only plan for this world. What difference should this make to how we “do’ church?