Fullness Of Christ Quotes & Sayings

Palestine was the West Point and Annapolis for the world. In that little country God was training up a people out of whom, when the fullness of the time should come, His gospel cadets should emerge, fitted by all the training of all their national history for going out among the heathen and proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. — William Mackergo Taylor

Christians today appear to know Christ only after the flesh. They try to achieve communion with Him by divesting Him of His burning holiness and unapproachable majesty, the very attributes He veiled while on earth but assumed in fullness of glory upon His ascension to the Father's right hand. The Christ of popular Christianity has a weak smile and a halo. He has become Someone-Up-There who likes people, at least some people, and these are grateful but not too impressed. If they need Him, He also needs them. (The Knowledge of the Holy) — A.W. Tozer

7 q In him we have r redemption s through his blood, t the forgiveness of our trespasses, u according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 v making known [3] to us the mystery of his will, n according to his purpose, which he w set forth in Christ 10as a plan for x the fullness of time, y to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. — Anonymous

Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything. 11-15 Entering into this fullness — Eugene H. Peterson

The gospel isn't merely the absence of all condemnation; it's also the fullness of God's delight lavished on us in Christ. — Scotty Smith

It is impossible to grasp the fullness of God without grasping the fullness of the love of Christ. — Lysa TerKeurst

The revelation of Christ, for which our souls thirst, thrills us increasingly as we more clearly understand who He is in all His fullness and what He accomplished to reconcile us to Himself. — Dave Hunt

Because Jesus Christ has prepared Himself from the foundations of the world we can trust Him as one uniquely qualified through the fullness of His love for His Father and us. His love, meekness, condescension, knowledge, power, commitment to agency, and obedience combine to bring this elusive peace to all of God's children. Our peace was purchased by the shedding of the innocent blood of God's purest Son. Our trust in His capacity to bring us this peace can be complete because that has been part of His work and His glory from the beginning. — David Wright

If we have, through grace, an interest in Him who is the Fountain, we may rejoice in him when the streams of temporal mercies are dried up. — Matthew Henry

It's not so difficult to acknowledge that we lack wisdom. When we pray and seek God's wisdom with a longing for a deeper fullness of the life of Christ, then we will always find something to pursue. — Esther Smith

All the fullness of God is in Jesus (Colossians 2:9). All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Jesus (Colossians 2:3). Beyond what the Old Testament told us, whatever we need to know about God and how he relates to our lives we learn from what we hear and see in God's final, decisive Word, Jesus Christ. — John Piper

Encounter Jesus. Suffer with him to experience his life more fully. Be holy in your love for God and his church as God is holy in his love for you and his church. Imagine what awaits those who now walk by faith, when faith and hope give way to the fullness of love when Jesus appears, when faith becomes sight at the consummation of Jesus' union with his people at the marriage supper of the Lamb. — Paul Louis Metzger

Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stone he shares existence, with the plants he shares life, with the animals he shares sensation, and with the angels he shares intelligence. Thus all things are transformed in Christ since in the fullness of his nature he embraces some part of every creature. — Bonaventure

To conceive God as an all-powerful Person, or else, under the name of Christ, as a human person, is to exclude oneself from the true love of God. For this reason we must love the perfection of the heavenly Father even in the diffusion of sunlight. The divine and absolute model of that renunciation in us - which is obedience - is the creative and ordained principle of the universe, such is the fullness of being. — Simone Weil

If the Latter-day Saints will walk up to their privileges, and exercise faith in the name of Jesus Christ, and live in the enjoyment of the fullness of the Holy Ghost constantly day by day, there is nothing on the face of the earth that they could ask for, that would not be given to them. The Lord is waiting to be very gracious unto this people, and to pour out upon them riches, honor, glory, and power, even that they may possess all things according to the promises He has made through His apostles and prophets. — Brigham Young

For our Christian groups and their leaders, it means that there is a simple, straightforward way in which congregations of Jesus' people can, without exception, fulfill his call to be an ecclesia, his "called out" ones: a touch point between heaven and earth, where the healing of the Cross and the Resurrection can save the lost and grow the saved into the fullness of human beings in Christ. No special facilities, programs, talents, or techniques are required. It doesn't even require a budget. Just faithfulness to the process of spiritual formation in Christlikeness exposed in the Scriptures and in the lives of his "peculiar people" through the ages (Titus 2:14, KJV). — Dallas Willard

Thus it will appear that we have placed and kept the Bible in the fore front of our work. It has been evangelization first, and civilization following along with it. This, it seems to us, is the true order. The civilization and the grand unification of the world is to be accomplished through faith in Christ. Hence it is written: 'For it pleased God that in Him should all fullness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things to Himself. — Stephen Return Riggs

We who are given the fullness of true Christianity are obliged to be working on ourselves, to be watching the signs of the times, and to be extremely joyful, as St. Paul is constantly saying: 'Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say: Rejoice!' (Phil. 4:4). We rejoice because we have something which all the death and corruption of this world cannot take away, that is, the eternal Kingdom of Jesus Christ. — Seraphim Rose

Some receive Christ in terms of the forgiveness of sin and the hope of heaven, yet know little of His fullness and the wealth that is to be found in Him. — Andrew Murray

In his (Christ's) surrender on the cross all the pain and agony of mankind was concentrated at a single point, and passed through from death to immortality, There is no pain of any creature from the beginning to the end of time which was not 'known' at this point and thus transmuted. To know all things in the Word is thus to know all the suffering of the world transfigured by the resurrection, somehow reconciled and atoned in eternal life. It was God's purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things on heaven and things on earth'. — Bede Griffiths

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal. — Pope John Paul II

As I have studied the Bible and the Book of Mormon, I have come to know through the power of the Spirit of God, that these books contain the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. — Clayton Christensen

For Barth, the image of God is not some faculty, some "thing" that God possesses and has also given to humans, but rather a triune pattern of activity. Barth writes, "And this obedience of Jesus is the clear reflection of the unity of the Father and the Son by the bond of the Spirit in the being of the eternal God Himself, who is the fullness of all freedom."5 This eternal obedience of the Son to the Father in the Spirit is incarnated in Jesus Christ; therefore, this pattern of activity is not a principle or a rule, but rather a Way. — Leanne Van Dyk

There can be no real establishment apart from growth in spiritual knowledge. Oh seek to be rooted and grounded in the faith! Do not be always a babe in knowledge, a mere dwarf in understanding, but go forward in the use of all God's ordained means of faith, until you "come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. — Octavius Winslow

The introductory statement for Paul's famous paragraph on marriage in Ephesians is verse 21: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."1 In English, this is usually rendered as a separate sentence, but that hides from readers an important point that Paul is making. In the Greek text, verse 21 is the last clause in the long previous sentence in which Paul describes several marks of a person who is "filled with the Spirit." The last mark of Spirit fullness is in this last clause: It is a loss of pride and self-will that leads a person to humbly serve others. From this Spirit-empowered submission of verse 21, Paul moves to the duties of wives and husbands. — Timothy J. Keller

Do not be afraid of seeming different and being criticized for what might seem to be losing or out of fashion; your peers but adults too, especially those who seem more distant from the mindset and values of the Gospel, are crying out to see someone who dares to live according to the fullness of humanity revealed by Jesus Christ. — Pope Benedict XVI

All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones. — Madeleine L'Engle

It takes courage to be a Christian. It takes great courage to go out and meet Christ when He is on the road to Calvary. But just as a coward has no right to call himself a man, so a slacker in any slightest degree has no right to call himself a Christian. We cannot say that we are "of Christ", far less that we are "in Christ", if we flinch the fullness of crucifixion! — M. Raymond

When the New Testament speaks about the fullness of grace which we find in Christ, it does not mean only forgiveness, pardon and justification. Christ has done much more for us. He died for us, but he also lived for us. Now he has sent his own Spirit to us so that we might draw on his strength. He grew in grace, and when we draw on his power we shall likewise grow in grace. — Sinclair B. Ferguson

God's desire is that we would grow in knowledge and wisdom into the fullness of the stature of Christ (see Eph. 4:13). That is His plan for all of us. The kingdom of God is all about growth. God is more interested in our growth than anything else, including the healing of our headache or our deliverance from an evil spirit. Please note: I did not say that these things aren't important to God. They are important to Him. But in eternity, the importance of our spiritual growth far outweighs our temporary afflictions (see 2 Cor. 4:17). — Praying Medic

He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30 — John Flavel

I too have learned this in my experiences with the Spirit of God. Every situation can be redeemed and turned into exactly the preparation we require for a fullness of joy-to the extent of ourfaith in Christ's redemptive power. To that extent, the very circumstances we may have cursed will turn out to be our schooling for salvation. — C. Terry Warner

He that confesseth not that Jesus has come in the flesh and sent Joseph Smith with the fullness of the Gospel to this generation, is not of God, but is anti-christ — Brigham Young

For the power Thou hast given me to lay hold of things unseen: For the strong sense I have that this is not my home:For my restless heart which nothing finite can satisfy: I give Thee thanks, O God. For the invasion of my soul by Thy Holy Spirit: For all human love and goodness that speak to me of Thee: For the fullness of Thy glory outpoured in Jesus Christ: I give Thee thanks, O God. — John Baillie

The Protestant wing of the western church, which is a tiny percentage of the Body of Christ, is nearly completely (98%) unaware that the Holy Spirit is restoring contemplative prayer-center stage-to the church The Holy Spirit is restoring this precious jewel (contemplative prayer) to the body of Christ. This is the God ordained means of attaining the fullness of God. — Mike Bickle

To it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits[1] of the world, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. — Anonymous

Let us not flutter too high, but remain by the manger and the swaddling clothes of Christ, 'in whom dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' — Martin Luther

To be in Christ is the source of the Christian life; to be like Christ is the sum of his excellence; to be with Christ is the fullness of his joy. — Charles Hodge

The truth is in Jesus and it leads to the fullness of truth about God, man, creation, history, sin, righteousness, grace, faith, salvation, life, death, purpose, meaning, relationships, heaven, hell, judgement, eternity, and everything else of ultimate consequence. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

They are teachers who point to their teaching or show some particular way. In all of these, there emerges an instruction, a way of living. It is not Zoroaster to whom you turn. It is Zoroaster to whom you listen. It is not Buddha who delivers you; it is his Noble Truths that instruct you. It is not Mohammed who transforms you; it is the beauty of the Koran that woos you. By contrast, Jesus did not only teach or expound His message. He was identical with His message. "In Him," say the Scriptures, "dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily." He did not just proclaim the truth. He said, "I am the truth." He did not just show a way. He said, "I am the Way." He did not just open up vistas. He said, "I am the door." "I am the Good Shepherd." "I am the resurrection and the life." "I am the I AM." In Him is not just an offer of life's bread. He is the bread. That is why being a Christian is not just a way of feeding and living. Following Christ begins with a way of relating and being. — Ravi Zacharias

Let us wait in patience for the Christ-child whose own life depended on the lives of Mary and Joseph. The Word of God was made flesh. He came so that we might experience the fullness of time. — Stanley Hauerwas

The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things. — Pope Francis

When a man really gives up trying to make something out of himself - a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called clerical somebody), a righteous or unrighteous man, ... when in the fullness of tasks, questions, success or ill-hap, experiences and perplexities, a man throws himself into the arms of God ... then he wakes with Christ in Gethsemane. That is faith, that is metanoia and it is thus that he becomes a man and Christian. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When I base my Christian life on my Christian experience, I become locked in the labyrinth of my own performance. I am only as sure of God as my current emotions and obedience allow. My eyes are fixed on myself. The gospel, the good news, is the way the Holy Spirit turns our eyes away from ourselves and onto Christ. The gospel brings you into union with Christ. Christ enters your heart and gives you faith. By that faith, you receive Christ and all his fullness. Faith fixes your eyes on Christ and rests in him. The — Rankin Wilbourne

Christ is God (Rom. 9:5). Jesus is Lord (Rom. 10:9, 12-13; 14:5-9; 2 Cor. 4:5; 12:8-10; Phil. 2:9-11 [expressly after the Resurrection]; Col. 2:6; 1 Tim. 6:3; Titus 2:13 [where he is called God and Savior]; Heb. 1:3-14). Christ is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15), in the form of God (Phil. 2:5). The fullness of God dwells in him (Col. 1:19; 2:9). He is in God (Col. 3:3). God and Christ are often coupled together (2 Cor. 10:4-6; Col. 2:2; 1 Tim. 5:21; 2 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 13:20), as is the Lord Jesus Christ with our God and Father (Rom. 15:5-7, 8; 1 Cor. 8:6;2 2 Cor. 1:3; 11:31; Eph. 1:3; Col. 1:3; 1 Thess.
3:11, 13; 5:23; 2 Thess. 1:5-10; 2:16; 3:5). — Robert Letham

It is extraordinary how little the New Testament says about God's interest in our success, by comparison with the enormous amount that it says about God's interest in our holiness, our maturity in Christ, and our growth into the fullness of His image. — J.I. Packer

THAT YOU, BEING ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE, MAY BE ABLE TO COMPREHEND WITH ALL THE SAINTS WHAT IS THE BREADTH AND LENGTH AND HEIGHT AND DEPTH, AND TO KNOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST WHICH SURPASSES KNOWLEDGE, THAT YOU MAY BE FILLED UP TO ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD. Do you hear what Paul is saying? The love of Christ is beyond knowledge. We've got to let go of our impoverished, circumcised, traditionalist, legalistic, human perceptions of God and open ourselves to the God in Jesus Christ. If we will, the promise is that we will be filled up with the fullness of God. — Brennan Manning

The gift of faith is a priceless spiritual endowment ... Our faith is centered in God our Father, and Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. It is bolstered by our knowledge that the fullness of the gospel has been restored to the earth; that the Book of Mormon is the word of God; and that prophets and apostles today hold the keys of the priesthood. We treasure our faith, work to strengthen our faith, pray for increased faith, and do all within our power to protect and defend our faith. — Neil L. Andersen

You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything but Christ. — Charles Spurgeon

You will never experience the fullness of joy you were created to know until Jesus Christ has first place in every area. — James MacDonald

Now comes the really amazing part. What is offered to the world, to everyone who hears the gospel, is not a love or saving achievement designed for all and therefore especially for no one; but rather, what is offered is the absolute fullness of all that Christ achieved for his elect. — John Piper

The work of the Spirit makes Christ's saving work real to our hearts, giving us supernatural help against the main enemy of marriage: sinful self-centeredness. We need the fullness of the Spirit if we are to serve one another as we should. — Timothy Keller

While we should never walk around feeling guilty for people's affliction (after all, it's the devil that is oppressing them, not us!) we must nonetheless accept the responsibility to grow up into the image of Christ, so that Jesus is able to express Himself through us in fullness. — Andy Hayner

God is going to take over the White House ... He is going to take over the Oval Office ... because it belongs to Him and He is going to bring all things summed up into the fullness of Christ. He is going to take that Supreme Court. He is going to turn that inside out. He is going to pray that strong man off that thing and He is going to bring the synergistic anointing of intercession and the prophetic anointing to break, to judge, to decree ... I will march into that place and declare a decree the word of the Lord boldly ... He is joining the kingly and the priestly anointing. — Dutch Sheets

It is up to us to add labors to labors in order to go from strength to strength (Ps. 83:7), and to come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13)? — Seraphim Of Sarov

If you accept the belief that baptism incorporates us in the mystical body of Christ, into the divine DNA, then you might say that the Holy Spirit is present in each of us, and thus we have the capacity for the fullness of redemption, of transformation. — Thomas Keating

humility is one of the chief and the highest graces; one of the most difficult of attainment; one to which our first and chiefest efforts ought to be directed; one that only comes in power, when the fullness of the Spirit makes us partakers of the indwelling Christ, and He lives within us. Second, — Andrew Murray

Jesus Christ is called "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). The Greek word used for image in the passage is eikon, from which we get the word icon. Jesus Christ is the only exact icon or physical representation of the invisible and unrepresentable deity. "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9). This is what paganism attempts with its idols - having a point of contact with God. By being close to the idol, the worshiper hopes to be close to God, for to his mind the idol possesses some degree of deity in itself. But just as God ridiculed the pagan idols as being blind, deaf, and dumb, so surely did Jesus Christ not only possess sight, hearing, and speech but give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and speech to the dumb. He was God in the flesh, walking among us, talking to us, eating with us, weeping with us. — Michael S. Horton