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The Human Search for Completeness
Deep in the human heart lies a quiet, lingering feeling of incompleteness. Some try to fill it with success, relationships, even spirituality. Yet, the creeping feeling remains. Because deep within the human heart lies a space that nothing temporal can fill (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
The human problem is not merely psychological or social dysfunction. It is deeply rooted. Humanity was not created merely with physical or emotional capacity, but also with spiritual capacity for a relationship with God.
But when sin entered, humanity lost the indwelling life and the fellowship of God that we were meant to enjoy. Ever since, we have lived with a lingering awareness of emptiness, and thrown into the exhausting effort to fill ourselves.
The gospel, however, presents a radical news that God Himself has made provision for our completeness in Christ. This is the astonishing revelation that the Holy Spirit made, through the apostle Paul, in Colossians 2:9–10:
“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
The phrase “complete in Him” carries profound theological weight. It declares that believers share in the sufficiency and fullness that reside in Christ Himself. Because Christ possesses the fullness of deity, those united to Him are also filled and full of the life and riches of God.
This article explores this profound truth of the sufficiency and completeness of believers in union with Christ, and its far reaching implications for our living in the present life.
Complete in Christ!
Colossians is a letter written to Christians living in a city filled with competing philosophies and mystical doctrines promising deeper enlightenment. False teachers in Colossae taught that Christ alone was insufficient—that believers needed special spiritual experiences to attain fullness.
Of course, this had serious impacts on the believers. But Paul, by unfolding the truth of the person of Christ and of the believers’ union with Him, dismantled that falsehood.
First, he declared that all the fullness—that is, qualities and riches—of deity dwells in Christ. Christ is not a partial likeness of God. He is God’s fullness incarnate (Hebrews 1:3). Everything that God is resides in Christ.
Then, Paul made another astonishing declaration:
“And you are complete in Him…”
Complete—Greek plērōmenoi, is “to fill completely, make full, bring to fullness, or to supply fully”. The tense describes a completed action with ongoing effects. So, believers have come into a state of perpetual fullness through Christ. We do not need anything outside Him to be complete, because there is nothing outside Him.
The phrase “in Him” describes how believers are spiritually united with Christ in His death, resurrection, and life. This is a central reality of the gospel.
Because of this union, all that Christ possesses—His death, resurrection, righteousness, life, standing before the Father, and victory over sin, death, and satan, became ours.
Many Christians find this truth hard to accept. They still carry feelings of inadequacy. But feelings don’t invalidate truth. Our completeness through Christ’s finished work is truth.
Two theological issues require clarity here. Positionally, we are complete—possessing everything necessary for godly living. 2 Peter 1:3 says God has given us everything necessary for living. However, experientially, we still wrestle with inadequacies in everyday life.
Not distinguishing the two realities leads either to striving to become what we already are, or to despair because our experiences don’t match what Scripture says about us.
However, God’s Word remains true, regardless of our experiences. We are complete in Christ. We only have to grow to experientially become what we are positionally. And, this is one of the beauties of the Christian life. It is an ever increasing life, not a static life. Daily, God grows us to experientially become what He has already made us in union with Christ.
Humanity’s Incompleteness Apart From God
To grasp the glory of being complete in Christ, we must first grasp the reality of humanity’s emptiness. Human emptiness is not merely an emotional problem; it is a spiritual condition.
We were made for life with God. The first humans originally lived in blissful fellowship with God. Their identity, purpose, and security came from that. But the entrance of sin brought spiritual disconnection from God.
From that came an internal emptiness. We have tried to fill the emptiness, seeking identity, meaning, and worth through external things. Yet with God absent from the center, even good things have felt useless. People gain wealth and influence and still feel insecure. People build many relationships and still feel alone. People pursue spiritual experiences and are still not at peace.
One of fallen man’s great errors is thinking that we can fill ourselves by ourselves. But Scripture dismantles this confidence. 2 Corinthians 3:5 says:
“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.”
Contextually, Paul said this in relation to believers. But if this is true of believers, then how much more is this insufficiency true of unsaved people?
The incompleteness manifests through:
A sense of guilt before God.
Insecurity about identity, worth, and significance.
Bondage to human approval.
Comparison and envy.
At its core, the error of unsaved people is misdirected dependence—relying on unstable external sources for completeness, rather than on God. Even believers sometimes drift into this error. While mentally affirming acceptance by grace, we practically live as if we must still earn it through effort.
When that happens, spiritual life becomes exhausting. Fellowship becomes fear driven. Failure produces condemnation rather than repentance and restoration.
But the gospel’s message is astonishing. God, through Christ, has provided what we could never achieve by ourselves, and offers it to us freely.
Christ the Believer’s Fullness
The gospel both reveals humanity’s emptiness and God’s answer to it. That answer is not a scientific theory, a philosophy, a religious system, or a self-improvement program, but a Person—Jesus Christ.
In Christ, everything humanity lost in the Fall is ultimately restored. Christ is not merely a guide to the life of God. He is the life (John 14:6). Apart from Him, there is no life. In Him, all who believe are restored to God’s life and fellowship.
This restoration was realized through Christ’s finished work. On the cross, Jesus dealt decisively with the sin barrier between us and God. He bore divine judgment so that believers could share in His righteous standing before the Father (2 Corinthians 5:21).
This is why Jesus’ final declaration on the cross—“It is finished”— carries such weight. The work necessary for reconciliation with God was completed fully in Him.
The believer’s relationship with God, therefore is built on Christ’s finished work. Acceptance with the Father is sustained through union with Christ, not by human performance.
Ephesians 2:5 states that God “made us alive together with Christ”. That phrase weighs heavily. Christianity is not more than moral reform. It is participation in Christ’s resurrected life. The believer has new spiritual life through Him.
Thus, Christ is the believer’s fullness. Outside Him, humanity remains empty despite outward success. But from His own fullness, believers also are filled with the fullness of God. Scripture declares:
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.” (John 1:16)
This truth doesn’t produce careless living. Rather, it produces freedom. Obedience flows from assurance instead of fear. Holiness flows from union with Christ rather than an attempt to earn God’s love. The Christian life is thus not sustained by striving to attain fullness. It is sustained by abiding in the One who already is our fullness.
What Believers Already Possess in Christ
A major cause of believers’ instability is ignorance of what we already possess. Many believers sincerely love God yet live with a constant sense of being spiritually incomplete. But the gospel repeatedly points to our present possess.
To be complete in Christ means that believers already possess, through union with Him, everything necessary for a full and rich life in God (2 Peter 1:3).
Firstly, we are fully accepted by God. Ephesians 1:6 says we are “accepted in the Beloved”. Acceptance before God is not rooted in believers’ merits but in Christ’s sufficiency. We stand before God clothed in Christ’s sufficiency.
Second, we are righteous. This righteousness is not self-generated moral perfection but God’s gift through faith (Romans 5:17). This means we no longer approach God as condemned sinners trying to earn favor, but as people justified through Christ.
We are also completely forgiven (Colossians 2:13–14). The cross was not a partial payment requiring us to complete it. Christ dealt decisively with the guilt of sin.
Because of this, we are also free from condemnation (Romans 8:1). Condemnation speaks of judicial guilt before God. In Christ, that sentence has been removed. While God’s Spirit convicts us for restoration and growth, we no longer live under divine judgment.
Additionally, we are adopted into God’s family (Romans 8:15). Christianity is not just about forgiveness. It is also about restoration into relationship with the Father. Our relationship with God is thus not distant and transactional, but relational and covenantal.
Finally, we are indwelled by God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). God now dwells within us through the Holy Spirit.
Taken together, these truths radically reshape us. Believers are not spiritually deficient. In Christ, we have everything necessary for the life in God already supplied to us.
Understanding this produces spiritual stability. A person grounded in his identity in Christ has confidence, not in his own performance, but in the sufficiency of the One who completes him.
Hinderances To Living in Christ’s Fullness
Despite this truth, many believers still live as though they are incomplete. This is not because this is not true, but because competing mindsets continually pull them away from resting in Christ’s sufficiency.
First is legalism—the belief that acceptance before God must be maintained through effort. While it appears spiritual outwardly, internally it produces pride, insecurity, or self-condemnation. The believer evaluates himself through personal effort, instead of Christ’s sufficiency
This was the danger Paul confronted in Galatians. The Galatians had started by trusting Christ, then they began drifting toward performance-based spirituality. Paul argued that just as salvation is not initiated by effort, it is also not sustained by it.
Second is comparison. Humans naturally measure themselves against others. But comparison destroys spiritual life, because it shifts identity away from Christ toward human metrics. It produces feelings of superiority in believers performing high, and secret insecurity in those who don’t measure up to others.
But completeness in Christ produces peace in believers, knowing that their worth rests in Christ, not in outperforming others.
Third is sin consciousness—a mindset beset by nagging awareness of failure. While we are not to ignore sin, some Christians live fixatedly on their shortcomings that they lose sight of the greater reality of Christ’s finished work.
The result is often continuing guilt, shame, and avoiding God’s presence. Such believers live as though Christ’s finished work were insufficient to secure real acceptance before God.
Every believer ought to know this: positionally, we have been perfected and placed perpetually in acceptance before God, but experientially, we are daily being sanctified to deal with our shortcomings (Hebrews 10:14)).
Another hindrance is seeking identity outside Christ. Modern culture pressures people to define themselves through success, influence, or public rating. Even believers can slip into this error and begin seeking significance from earthly values.
But external achievements are never designed to bear the weight of human identity. They are unstable grounds; they shift constantly.
The Christian life is a life of abiding in Christ’s fullness. We must continuously renew our minds with the truth of our completeness in Christ (Romans 12:2), and make it the basis for defining ourselves (Philippians 3:3–11).
Ultimately, every hindrance considered has the same goal: to shift the believer’s focus away from Christ’s sufficiency toward self-sufficiency. But the Christian life was never designed to be sustained by striving. It is sustained by abiding in the One who is already enough.
Living Daily From Christ’s Sufficiency
One of the believer’s greatest challenge is learning to live from Christ’s sufficiency. Many affirm the truth intellectually yet still live from the pressure to establish our own sufficiency.
This begins with renewing our mind through God’s Word. Real transformation occurs as we consistently align our thinking with biblical revelation of us in Christ. Feelings fluctuate, circumstances change, and failures occur, but our standing in Christ remains constant.
This is why meditating on God’s Word is essential. As we continually feed on truths concerning our identity in Christ, we gradually shift from self-consciousness to Christ-consciousness. Instead of constantly asking, “Am I enough?” We begin resting in Christ’s sufficiency.
Scripture commands us to set our minds “on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). To set our mind on Christ is to intentionally anchor our identity, security, and confidence in heavenly realities rather than unstable earthly metrics.
Living from Christ’s sufficiency also transforms prayer. Many believers approach God timidly, as though they must first prove themselves worthy of His attention. But Scripture teaches that confidence before God rests on Christ’s finished work, not personal perfection.
Hebrews 10:19–20 says:
“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh.”
Boldness before God is not arrogance; it is confidence in Christ’s mediation. We approach the Father not on the basis of personal merit, but through Christ’s imputed merits.
Living from Christ’s sufficiency also produces rest. Modern life is filled with pressure to achieve, prove, and perform. Even spiritually, many live exhausted from the pressure to perform and prove themselves to God. But the gospel invites us into rest.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28–29:
“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
This rest is not laziness or spiritual passivity. It is freedom from the burden of trying to secure acceptance through self-effort. We work, serve, obey, and pursue holiness—but from acceptance, not for acceptance.
Furthermore, living from Christ’s sufficiency alters how we respond to failure. Christians still stumble and need correction, repentance, and growth. But failure no longer defines us. Instead of running from God in shame, we can run toward Him in repentance because our relationship with Him rests on grace.
Finally, living from Christ’s sufficiency produces stability in a world driven by comparison and insecurity. When identity is rooted in Christ, believers are less controlled by human validation. Our worth is anchored in something eternal and unchanging.
This is the practical power of being complete in Christ. Believers no longer live as spiritually deficient striving to become enough. We live as those already accepted, loved, and made full in Christ.
Conclusion: Christ Is the Believer’s Fullness
Beneath all human striving lies a deeper spiritual longing for fellowship with God. Scripture reveals that this longing finds its answer fully and finally in Jesus Christ. The human heart was never designed to find completion in anything else.
Herein lies the glory of the gospel: believers do not labor to become complete on our own. God, in Christ, has already provided the fullness humanity could never achieve through self-effort. Paul’s declaration in Colossians 2:10, “and you are complete in Him”, remains one of the most liberating truths of Scripture.
Because of Christ’s finished work, believers are accepted, forgiven, reconciled, and brought into relationship with the Father. We are no longer spiritually estranged or condemned. We share in the life and fullness of the One in whom all the fullness of God dwells.
This does not eliminate spiritual growth or discipline. Christians are still being transformed into Christ’s likeness. But growth is no longer a desperate attempt to earn God’s acceptance. It is the unfolding of a relationship already secured by grace.
This truth changes the believer’s posture completely. Instead of striving anxiously for identity, we learn to rest in the identity already given in Christ. Instead of serving from fear, we serve from love. Instead of living trapped in condemnation, we approach God with confidence through Jesus Christ.
In a culture constantly telling people they are not enough and must endlessly reinvent themselves, the gospel announces something radically different: fullness is found in being united to Christ, not by endlessly reinventing oneself.
Ultimately, Christ is not merely the giver of spiritual completeness; He is the believer’s completeness Himself. Outside Him, the soul remains restless. In Him, the believer finds the acceptance, life, and fullness for which humanity was created.
