Jesus said
“I have come that they may have life, life to the full.”

Is there more to life than this?

Finishing uni. Falling in love. Landing your dream job. Getting your first Rolex. Completing an Ironman. Starting a family. Submitting your thesis. Seeing the Northern Lights. What's next?

For many of us, we go through life like that. We may not feel it at the time, but we're always looking forward to the next thing. And when we get there, there is always a feeling that something is missing…

We are all longing for fullness. A desire for life to be more.

Philosopher Charles Taylor says:

“We all see our lives, and/or the space wherein we live our lives, as having a certain moral/spiritual shape. Somewhere, in some activity, or condition, lies a fullness, a richness; that is, in that place, life is fuller, richer, deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it should be.”

The difference between a believer in God and a secular person is that for the believer fullness lies in God. For the secular person fullness lies in human flourishing without any connection to God.

There are two very common ways we can attempt to find fullness in human flourishing without God.

Wealth

The first attempt of finding fullness without God is in the accumulation of wealth. Happiness and fulfilment attained by wealth, material things and material security. Studies have shown that money can buy happiness but only to a certain point. A study reported by CNBC shows that households don’t get happier with household incomes higher than $75,000. Increasing your income, accumulating wealth and living above the poverty line does provide a sense of security, peace and enjoyment. But it doesn’t give us complete happiness. Money has diminishing returns in reducing unhappiness.

Comedian Russel Brand said in an interview:

“I experienced the thing that I was culturally indoctrinated to believe a kind of salvation in fame and fortune and yet salvation did not come. Instead I had a sense of despair that I did not prepare for. A sense of alienation which I tried to solve by lacquering it in glamour, by trying to acquire money, by consuming.”

Self-Improvement

The other attempt for finding fullness without God is through self-improvement. Instead of trying to seek fullness outwardly through material wealth and possessions, we can try to seek fullness inwardly by improving ourselves - to fully realise our best selves in terms of health, well-being, productivity, self-motivation and professional development. These things are all good things and they all contribute to satisfaction and fulfilment. But self-improvement also has its limits. Because all our hard work of improving ourselves is ultimately given to a world of sin, decay and death.

You might not be able to fully actualise yourself because of a jerky boss who is actively hindering your potential and progress. For some of you there are parts of physical being that will always hinder you from being the best version of you. Self-improvement and self-actualisation also have diminishing returns by the natural process of ageing and death. Self-actualisation is literally short lived.

Steve Jobs, the pin-up boy of self-actualisation, personal success and making a lasting impact in the world, when contemplating his own death, confessed that he felt that:

“It’s strange to think you accumulate all this experience… and it just goes away. So, I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your consciousness endures.”

Jobs speaks of a desire that many people have - to actualise oneself beyond death.

The fullness that Jesus offers

Wealth and self-improvement are good for human flourishing, but it will never make us full. We still want more! That is why most us, with highly professional careers, with the most advanced and latest technologies in our pockets, with salaries in the world’s top percentiles, with kombucha and activewear, with podcasts and books, we are still restless and experience dissatisfaction in life.

And all these attempts for fullness without God demands to give of yourself - your hours, your energies, your sweat, your calories, your future - only to leave you with an empty feeling. Many times, these God-less pursuits for fullness feels like you’re being robbed of the very life that you are trying to fill!

Jesus says it like this:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:10-11)

Jesus is saying that there are those who promise us fullness but they end up robbing our lives. But Jesus isn’t like that. Before we offer and give anything to Jesus, he emptied himself first to give us life to the full. Jesus died to free us from trying to find a fullness that we can’t achieve ourselves. At the cross, Jesus tore down all our failures, all our shortcomings, all our regrets that made us fall short of being the people we desire to be and the people that God desires us to be. At the cross, Jesus forgave the debt of wrongdoing that we’ve accumulated so we could receive an everlasting relationship with God and his kingdom.

Only Jesus offers true fullness. Because Jesus offers you more than everlasting riches, he also offers a relationship with God who is the very essence and being of love, truth, perfection and beauty. A God who offers you the fullness of himself in Jesus even though he knows the fullness of your sin.

Only Jesus offers true fullness. Because Jesus doesn’t offer the best version of you. Jesus offers you to be like him. To be a greater version of you. To be like God. To actualise an identity, a meaning, a purpose, that is greater than yourself.

We don’t find fullness outwardly through wealth. We don’t find fullness inwardly through self-improvement. We find fullness upwardly in Jesus. Jesus offers his fullness as a gift to be received. A fullness that can never be earned or gained by wealth or self- improvement.

Jesus said “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). 

Pastor Michael Nhieu

Further Resources