The steady, obnoxious rain forced the wedding inside.
We scrunched together around tables that would later be used for the reception and dinner. Twinkle lights brightened by the dreary day laced the ceiling romancing the mood. Despite the change of venue, it was a cozy, sweet, beautiful wedding.
It’s the third wedding I’ve attended in four months. That’s a lot of flowers and cake and vows. Though each couple repeated traditional vows, they also spoke their own.
At this particular wedding, the rainy one, the groom said something like, “You do not complete me nor do I complete you. Jesus completes us.”
His vow struck a note in my soul. How often we think of another person completing us, but nobody can do that.
Nobody but God.
We’ve been reading verses from Romans 8 in our Bite of Bread this week. And as I studied Romans 8:32, I came across Scriptural proof of Jesus as our completer.
“. . .He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all–how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?”
The word “all things” was translated from a Greek word that includes the idea of “oneness, a totality or the whole.” (Complete Word Study)
My translation would be something like this:
How will God not, along with Jesus, give us wholeness?
I suffered a gaping hole inside me before I came back to Jesus as Savior of the world. I had left my faith in Christ to search for the bigger picture in religion and came up empty. I’m so thankful I discovered that nothing could fill me like His Spirit. Even church was empty until I decided to live for Him again.
After years as a Christian I’ve noticed how desperately we need Jesus to complete us rather than children or a spouse, friends or shoes, or a great profession. Children grow up. Spouses and friends are human. Shoes styles change. And everybody has a bad day at work no matter how much you love your job, and retirement will knock on our door one day. These things are temporary. They are for seasons, but Christ is forever.
Who completes you?
Who makes you whole?
I hope you’ve found the answer is Jesus. If not, He’s only a prayer away. Just ask Him to be your Savior.
I feel a prayer coming on. Grab my hand.
“Dear God, fill us. Thank you for completing us. Thank you, Jesus, for being our Savior. Reveal to us the lies we believe, the partial truths that are really worldly thought. Open our minds to understand your truth and keep us hungry for your Word. Make us Bible study nerds excited to experience the Living Word. And Lord I pray that if any of the hearts reading this come across something in the Bible they don’t understand or doesn’t seem right, they will dig. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Leave a comment: Which translation of Romans 8:32 speaks to you, “all things” or “wholeness”?
Jesus loves you,
Andy, your story could be mine, except that I was seeking the things of this world to fill me. Boy did I come up empty! Even after returning to church I wasn’t filled, though I knew I was moving in the right direction. It took regular Bible study, which included prayer, which built relationship and trust. I’m a fellow Bible study nerd! Thank you!
Hi Cathy! I know you are a Bible study nerd too! I love that on the same day we both admonished our readers to dig into the Bible! Yes, you’re a kindred spirit. Keep writing. I really enjoy your posts.
This is beautiful! Thank you. I love you.
You were a beautiful mother of the bride! Love you too!
Andy, Thank you for, once again, enlarging my understanding of God’s word. I love the idea “Oneness, a totality of the whole”. To me it is so much deeper than “all things”.
I agree, Valerie! I love it too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Oh I love that translation of “wholeness”. When I think of “all things” I can filter it through other circumstances, other “things” that add but don’t complete. Like checking off all the items on a grocery list. But the picture of wholeness is different. Not the external list of needs, the internal filling of my emptiness. So good!
Exactly, Jen! Isn’t it exciting! “…the internal filling of my emptiness” and less-than, and broken…completed by Him. Thanks for stopping by and getting excited with me!