The Fullness of God
/I’ve had a head and heart FULL of thoughts and feelings about the FULLNESS of God.
The word fullness implies being filled to capacity, and when referring to the fullness of God, it includes every aspect of who He is in all His Glory.
His love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, truth, and sovereignty are all far beyond our capacity because they are greater than anything we can ask, imagine, or fathom.
A few days ago I was out shopping for luggage with my son as he prepares to study abroad. When planning and packing, he has to keep in mind the airline restrictions when it comes to his checked and carry on bag dimensions. He can’t go over capacity in length, height, width, or weight, or it’ll cost him.
But that’s not how it works with the fullness of God. There are no restrictions, limitations, or stipulations.
His love is unconditional and everlasting.
His mercy dives to the deepest depth.
His grace reaches to the highest height.
His forgiveness spans the greatest expanse.
His truth is the standard for all credibility.
His sovereignty oversees all authority.
And the fullness of God can never be depleted or defeated. It never runs out, even though it is forever spilling out and filling us.
When we are full of Him, there’s no room for the things that keep us from Him, so when this crazy world we live in, bumps us again and again, His fullness spills out of us and onto others.
The fullness of God — with our head, we will never fully comprehend it, but with our heart, we can fully experience it.
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21, ESV)
The Love of God
by Frederick Martin Lehman (1917)
The love of God is greater far
than tongue or pen can ever tell;
it goes beyond the highest star,
and reaches to the lowest hell;
the guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
and pardoned from his sin.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure:
the saints’ and angels’ song!
When years of time shall pass away
and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
when men who here refuse to pray,
on rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so pure shall still endure,
all measureless and strong;
redeeming grace to Adam's race—
the saints’ and angels’ song.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure:
the saints’ and angels’ song!
Could we with ink the ocean fill
and were the skies of parchment made,
were ev’ry stalk on earth a quill
and ev’ry man a scribe by trade,
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry;
nor could the scroll contain the whole,
tho' stretched from sky to sky.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure:
the saints’ and angels’ song!