Recently, I saw an amusing social media post. It was a video of an elderly grandma at a gas station. She was confidently filling up her vehicle as she smiled at the person filming her. This would’ve been a heartwarming video of a capable senior until the cameraman pans over to the vehicle she was fueling. As some of you may have guessed, she was trying to put gas in a Tesla. She had the wrong fuel for a car that couldn’t be filled up with gas.
What we fuel into our life also depends on what we think will make us full. When Jesus says [in John 10:10], “ I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” It is an invitation but also a correction. It is an invitation because Jesus is inviting us to receive the life that we were designed to have. A life that goes beyond the superficial needs and wants but goes to the heart of our being. It fills what is truly empty in us.
This fullness of life that Jesus is calling us to is also a correction of what we humans often settle for fuel. We fuel our lives with things and activities that we think will fulfil us, but in the end, we are left wanting. Christians are also not immune to this either; we are also not immune to settling for a less-than-fulfilling life. For some, we settle for a job that does not give us a purpose other than the money, or we settle by not asking God to change us so that we find our purpose in the work God has placed us in. For others, it may be a challenging relationship that we gave up on; we give it only just enough for life support. We settle for something less than what Jesus wants to give us.
Paul understood the difficulty of pursuing what God wants to give us, and this is why he encourages us in his letters to the Ephesians [3:16-19]. He says,
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
To grasp the depth of Christ’s love for us and the life He wants to give us requires His strength and power. We need to pray for it! We need to seek His strength for us to not settle for second best and hold on to the ocean of goodness that He wants to pour into us. This fullness of life does not mean there will be any trials, tribulations, or sufferings, but it does mean a life that overflows with God’s presence through the darkness of valleys.
As life group leaders, you have access (and established trust) to one of the critical questions about your member's life:
What are they filling their life with right now?
What do they consider as “life to the fullness?”
Their answers can help your group reflect and sharpen one another. It might catalyze a deeper conversation about their current season of walking with Jesus, and it might challenge each other to live into Jesus’ definition of a full life.
As our LG year ends before summer, I pray that you and your group will not settle for a life less than what God calls His church to be. We are made to experience “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” Let us lead others into this life with intentions, also.