The Last Piece of the Puzzle

“And you are complete in Him.” Colossians 2:10 

Have you ever been the lucky one to find the last piece of the puzzle all by yourself?  The 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle has been scattered out on the card table for weeks. You toy with a single piece, and suddenly, it starts coming together.  You get on a roll and put the last piece into place. You shriek and shout, but no one is there to see it happen and your moment goes unappreciated except for your inner satisfaction.  You no longer have to stare at an incomplete picture with its gaping holes. 

Incomplete is a frustrating word.  It is the bane of our existence; it carries the baggage of failure; it sags with disappointment; it weighs heavily with depression.  An incomplete grade; incomplete test; incomplete treatment. To a quarterback, an incomplete pass is not good; neither is an incomplete game to a pitcher; or an incomplete three-point play to a point guard.  We hate an incomplete manuscript, an incomplete call, an incomplete contract, an incomplete portrait.  But, that’s where we are. 

The world cannot complete you.  Not only does the world fail to complete you; it actually depletes you!  In Colossians 2:8-10, Paul alerts us to the dangers that exist in the world, dangers that threaten our faith and leave us with an incomplete life. We can be spoiled—meaning stripped of all value and left with nothing, e.g. the spoils of war; or “to the victor goes the spoil.”  We can be stripped of value by philosophy, by vain deceit, by the tradition of men, by the rudiments of the world.  Our incomplete life cries for a greater understanding about God. 

God completes; He is the essence of wholeness.  “For in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Some wonder about the importance of the oneness of God.  Does it have practical value?  Is it meaningful to us in real life?  Absolutely!  The doctrine of the oneness of God is more than a mere theological position. The plenary indwelling of God in Christ Jesus, the awesome revelation that all of God—His height, His depth, His length, His breadth—is in the man Christ Jesus. All of God I will ever see, all of God I will ever know, is in Jesus Christ!  This truth profoundly impacts my life.  “Ye are complete in Him…” The two words—fulness and complete—both come from the same root word. In fact, some versions of the Bible use the same word in both verses.  

Have you grasped this powerful concept?  However incomplete we may be by the standards of the world, we are complete in Him!  Because God dwells fully in Christ, we are full by living in Christ. Because Christ has access to every attribute of God, so we have access to every attribute of God by dwelling in Christ. Jesus Christ is totally complete and fully divine.