Shortchanged
How often have you heard someone asking for a double portion or been compelled to ask for it yourself?
If I had a delicious yeast roll and you asked me for part of it, and I gave you a portion of it, you might say thank you. If I volunteered another portion, you might say thank you again, feeling you had received a double portion. But, ironically, you didn’t get the whole roll. In a way, if you think about it, you were shortchanged if you were meant to have a whole roll of your own.
Under the New Covenant, we are not given small portions of Christ and the things of God. We are given everything in Christ! We have not been shortchanged.
Colossians 2:8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 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.
2Peter 1:3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
In the New Covenant, we have not been shortchanged by God. He is not withholding anything promised or that which is good from us. He has provided for us abundantly through Jesus Christ. The more we come to know Christ, the more we realize all that is ours in Him.
But when we allow ourselves to get into Old Covenant mindsets, we can think we lack something due to God holding back on us. The real truth is that we struggle to believe what His word has declared to us. We often struggle with just how good and how willing He really is.
The only way any follower of Christ can be shortchanged is by not believing as they should what has been spoken in His word based on who Christ is and what Christ has done. It can’t be based on what they have or have not done.
Too often, a person is cheated out of what is possible in Christ through some persuasive philosophy gaining popularity in social media circles or through the Christian hotline. Or they can get cheated out of what is possible in Christ because of traditions they’ve been under all their life that convince them they are an exception to being able to receive His goodness and kindness. Performance-based thinking interferes with a person’s ability to receive by faith.
We’ve all been called to glory and virtue. Glory is His presence and virtue in the ability to have strength and resolve in the face of opposition and challenge. It is the ability to be who He says we are and receive and walk in what He says we should without apology or shame. In Greek, virtue is defined as Manliness(valor) - praise.
It represents the idea of being able to stand and lead others. God awakened us to His presence and made us partakers of His divine nature and power through faith in Christ, and the promises He makes are now yes and amen in Christ Jesus. But sadly, some put conditions on your ability to receive other than faith in Jesus and His completed work. Even more sad is when we do it to ourselves.
All the fullness of God is yours in Christ. If you only believe it, you will experience it.
John 1:16 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.
No believer should ever think of themselves as shortchanged unless they have been believing a wrong message and were cheated out of what is truly theirs already in Christ. God is not a man that He should lie or need to repent. God cannot lie. That means what He has promised He will uphold. Knowing the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, results in being filled with all the fullness of God! Please read it for yourself in Ephesians 3:19
You do not need a double portion when you already have the fullness. Christ enabled us to receive everything God promised in His word. I encourage you today to look into all that God has promised in His word and begin taking hold of it by faith in what Jesus did instead of what you must do to earn it.
