Complete
When we say something is complete, it generally means it is done, finished, and meets the standard set for it.
As a noun in the dictionary, it means having all the necessary or appropriate parts.
When used in Scripture, the Greek word interpreted as complete is pleroo, which means complete, perfect, full, or furnished.
If you’ve ever worked in construction and built a home, you know that there is such a thing as a punch list. In fact, until the punch list is satisfied, the home, although it looks done, is not yet complete.
When it comes to spiritual things and how we are to be presented to God in Christ, the punch list has been fulfilled.
Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
In Christ is all the fullness of the Godhead! I have been placed in Christ, where all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. I have His spirit in me! I am not trying to present myself to God as being one who has it all together and demonstrates better willpower than most. I am totally dependent on what Christ Jesus did for me at the cross when He spoiled the powers and principalities!
Colossians 2:11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, 14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
My boast is not in things I have accomplished in my flesh. My boast is in what He accomplished and how it has become mine through faith in Him. I stand on His merits before God, not my own. Jesus completed the punch list on my behalf. The only way I am presentable to the Father is by being hidden with God in Christ! I am accepted in the Beloved. If I try to present myself according to my own deeds as a means of being acceptable, then I am like a thief or a robber climbing over the wall to get in.
Jesus said very clearly that He was the door, the gate. No one can legitimately enter without going through Him. This is why Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life! No one can come to the Fathe except through Him, and there are no exceptions for this. Any report, regardless of how convincing it might seem, that tries to say there’s another way of being complete and accessing God is a total lie.
I am complete and accepted only because I am in Christ!
