Stephen continued his series on God’s fulness this evening, looking at the stumbling-block which often cause us to fail to experience God’s fulness in the way He wants us to. We often find it difficult to believe that God wants us to enter into His fulness; we are so used to hearing the negative voice of others and of the enemy which constantly tells us ‘You’re not good enough.’ When we read Scripture, we find amazing truths, but often remember verses out of context. Thus Rom 3:23 reminds us that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but we often take that as condemnation, whereas Rom 3:24 goes on to remind us that all are justified freely through God’s grace and through the redemption purchased for us through Christ Jesus. There is no need for despair, but we often find ourselves in a ‘Catch 22’ situation, putting ourselves down and refusing to enter into God’s fulness because we feel unworthy.
The good news is that God’s grace is sufficient for us and that His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). All that is required from us is to believe that God wants us to enter into His fulness; He pleads with each of us to accept and receive His truth and allow this truth to transform our lives. He is not interested in part-installation which fails at the last moment (rather like trying to install new software on a computer and failing at the last minute!), but wants us to allow His fulhness to dwell in us through the living Word of God.
We also had two family birthdays to celebrate:
