6.2 Custom Made to Fit God
© 2015 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
That you might be filled with all the fullness of God.
Paul said that we are transformed (into the image of Jesus) by the renewing of our minds, a process that begins only after God has fully won our hearts.
Think about this line, Ephesians 3:19b; think that it is the largest statement in the universe. Think that from here on out. Then, think about the immediate obvious implication. When God designed man in the beginning, He designed our construction to contain, not just a bit of “God,” but to contain ALL of God that exists. You and I are custom made to fit God.
Might Be
God requires doors. Doors are always for two purposes, both at the same time. Doors keep things out that do not belong, and doors swing wide open to welcome in family. “Might be” is a very effective door.
God and All of Salvation (Jesus) are always all NOW. But how many look at this verse and then look at themselves and say “Might be? Yea, right, maybe someday, maybe not.” Here’s what they really mean: “I am quite content to live my life empty of God; being filled with God does not interest me.”
Hearts won by God say, “I AM filled with all of God NOW!”
Defining Man
FILLED with ALL the FULLNESS of GOD! Can you believe that? We must. Are we talking about man? Yes, we are. If all of God in all of His Being and Person and Character is not found inside of anyone’s definition of man, it’s not man they are defining.
Does that blow things right out of the water or not? We must deal with it! God said it, and He always speaks the truth. When God formed us in the beginning, He designed us to contain all of God. That is our shape. Our purpose is to be God’s body –so that God Himself in Person can be known by all creation – through us.
God Is a Person
To begin, there is God. God is infinite and eternal, defined as NOW and PRESENT - both absolute; He is all-powerful and all-knowing; He is the Pattern and the Completion.
Yes, He is all those things, and every element of every part of what God is in all those things is included in ALL of God. But God is first a Person. And as a Person, God is heart. This means God feels and hopes, He desires and dreams. Yet God's feelings and hopes, desires and dreams are infinite and eternal, that is, they are now and present, yes, but they are VERY, VERY Personal. This means that humans are real ONLY when they are filled full with another Person, Person inside of person.
Sharing Heart with God
God's heart is so personal that He has shown it in only one time and place inside creation before now. God opened His real and inner heart in the atonement, and there we were, inside that very heart. The first part of ALL the Fullness of God filling us full is God's heart. Everything proceeds out of Heart first. God places His very heart inside of us as the beginning of “filled with all the fullness of God.” God's heart and my heart are the same thing. I share heart with God.
Say this to yourself. "I share heart with God. His heart is my heart and my heart is His heart."
Say What?
Ephesians 3:19 raises 10,000 questions (for starters) in those few who will consider its reality.
Person inside of person; Heart inside of heart. How can two persons be one person together? Are there two minds or one? Are there two wills or one? Does one Person command and the other person comply with instant and absolute obedience as a mindless slave? Or is Person inside of person something entirely, entirely, entirely different from Satan’s command and control?
Can Person inside of person mean that two are always One in every way – yet with sweet communion – forever?
Symmorphology
Biology is the study of life; geology is the study of the earth; anthropology is the study of man; theology is the study of God.
Symmorphology:
- The study of God and man fused together in one form.
- The study of the interconnections between God and man by which two Ppersons exist together as One.
- The study of those elect who are symmorphosed with God, their qualities and actions, God through them.
- A discipline of the sciences; the science of the fusion of God and man together, both of their internal functioning and of their outward expression.
God Is.
The entire difference between the old creation and the new creation can be found in two words. Ignorance of God versus Knowledge of God.
That now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. . . Ephesians 3:10
Heaven now does not know God. Heaven is passing away. Yet the knowledge of God, the entirety of the new creation, comes out of one place alone. Symmorphy – out from God’s elect.
Filled
We must now deal with this word, “filled.” “Filled” means every particle of who and what I am, spirit, soul, and body. “All” means all. There is not a particle, a dimension, a realm, a place, a character trait, a quality that is God that is not also IN me, filling every particle of me as me.
My spirit is filled with God! My heart is filled with God! My mind is filled with God! My will is filled with God - All and Absolute! My body is filled with God! Think of the verses that say exactly each one of these claims.
Here is the bottom line, however: My flesh is filled with God.
Human Flesh
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
God made man flesh, that God might be revealed through flesh. The fact that our flesh is dying right now just proves God's glory more completely as He fills our flesh.
What about sin?
When I might "see" sin, I cannot see it. All I can see is Christ. - And Christ is always billowing up from beneath of me, from within me, catching me up into Himself every moment, conforming Himself to my weakness, stumbling with me along my way, taking me into His death, arising into life and ascending on high, and I always in Him, always all and every moment.
With
The Greek word eis, translated “with” is far bigger than I had considered. Yes, it includes every part of the meaning of “with,” but it goes so far beyond that “with” seems way too small. Eis is translated into many different English prepositions, expanding every aspect of the primary preposition, “into.” But eis qualifies “into” as being a penetration for purpose.
Angels and animals can do and be what God created them to do and be in and of themselves. You and I cannot. Eis requires the immediate, continuous ACTION of Almighty God DOING this word FILLED every moment, otherwise we are not humans.
“I can of Myself do nothing.” Jesus, who is God-Revealed.
All Fullness
All of God. Love. Fire. Power. The Holy of the Throne. The “Fullness” of God. Fullness is billowing, it is explodingness, it is above and beyond.
All of infinity is inside of me, yes, but infinity in FULLNESS, omnipresence in fullness, omnipotence in fullness, eternality in fullness, holiness in fullness, love in fullness, light in fullness, exploding, billowing, rushing mighty rivers of God, all of Him inside of me, all of Him flowing out of me.
God is ACTION! Immense, overwhelming Action. God is REST, meek and lowly of heart, tender, gentle, and kind. All of God filling all of me.
Pro-Thesis
Eis means penetration for purpose. Purpose takes us back to Romans 8:28 – prothesis, the setting forth of God out from the core of His heart.
You are as I am, I’m sure, simply floored and overwhelmed with all the alls that are God that fill me full with all exploding expression and with all gentle rest. Yet none of the expressions of God recounted in the last slide really catch the biggest element of this BEING, this PERSON, this Fellow who has seized us in His grip.
You and I are filled full with ALL fiery Determination, all focused Intention, all express, iron-willed Purpose. You and I are filled with Heart.
A Man
A man after My own heart.
Do you see, now, how this line simply must bring us to tears?
What is a man? (I’m using this word by its pre-modern meaning, that is humanity, male and female.) Only one man has ever walked this earth until now, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me define “man” or the human: man is God-Revealed. God in Person in fullness is most of what a man or a woman is. A human empty of God is no human at all: potential yes, reality, no. God is all in all. We enter into life by KNOWING Him.
A Representation of the Human(In making the following diagram, I am limited to the tools available in Microsoft Word. It is, however, identical in essence to the Ark of the Covenant. In that Ark, acacia wood, human flesh, is covered on the inside and on the outside with gold, that is, God. Inside the ark is the testimony of the covenant, representing our hearts of flesh upon which are written all the story of Christ.)
Being Human
Is Ephesians 3:19b true or not? Does it mean what it says or not?
For forty years I wanted to write from my heart, but could not. Then, in September of 2006, the seasons of God’s appointment changed. I began to write. For almost nine years, now, I have written out from an ever flowing river for one reason.
I want to be what I am. I want to know this God who fills me full.
Symmorphy is a study and an exercise that grows without end. Being human, that is, God-Revealed, is forever.