Complete in Christ

Hello, and thanks for joining me for another edition of Our Daily Bread. I'm Sheridan Voisey, and I've titled today's encouragement Complete in Christ.

In a popular film, an actor plays a success-driven sports agent whose marriage begins to crumble. Attempting to win back his wife, Dorothy, he looks into her eyes and says, You complete me. It's a heartwarming message that echoes a tale in Greek philosophy. According to that myth, each of us is a half that must find our other half to become whole. The belief that a romantic partner completes us is now part of popular culture.

But is it true? I talk to many married couples who still feel incomplete because they haven't been able to have children, and others who've had kids but feel something else is missing. Ultimately, no human can fully complete us. The Apostle Paul gives another solution in Colossians chapter 2. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body, so you also are complete through your union with Christ. Jesus doesn't just forgive us and liberate us. He also completes us by bringing the life of God into our lives.

Marriage is good, but it can't make us whole. Only Jesus can do that. Instead of expecting a person, career, or anything else to complete us, let's accept God's invitation to let His fullness fill our lives more and more. Today's scripture reading is from Colossians chapter 2 verses 6 to 15. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.

He is the head over every power and authority. In Him you are also circumcised, with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self, ruled by the flesh, was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we're grateful for the special people in our lives, our spouses and romantic partners, our children, our friends, our wider family. We're grateful for our careers and our callings, and for all the material blessings in our lives. But we know that we can have all of these things and still be incomplete, because completeness only comes through you. Thank you for your death, resurrection, forgiveness and restoration. They are what really makes us complete. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.