Discover your wholeness
A couple of days ago I saw a video on social media of a guy who has been very successful in business and life. He has a great job, works hard, has made a whole lot of money, has a nice house, and by all outward appearances is as successful as you could hope to be. But there was something missing. He felt no wholeness to his life.
He said he had no idea about what his deeper life purpose was. And he was very open about it. In fact, he admitted he didn’t know how to discover his purpose.
Have you ever felt like that, a sense of incompleteness? Either with or without the outward success?
Sometimes we think we’re not complete because some of that outward success is missing. We don’t have enough money. We don’t have good relationships. We don’t have a good job. Or it could be anything.
Outward success alone is not wholeness
It’s all too easy to think once you have those outward signs of success, you’ll be happy, you’ll be satisfied and feel complete and whole. But that is often not the case, like with that fellow I saw on social media.
Sometimes the feeling of incompleteness is more internal. We realize there’s something spiritual missing from our lives: we need more love, more patience, more forgiveness. We realize our need to be more humble and trust in God more than ourselves or other people, those sorts of things
And then sometimes, there’s a feeling of incompleteness and we don’t know what it is we need. Life just seems bland, empty, and void of purpose. Sometimes this goes on for a day or a few days, but sometimes people feel this ways for months and years.
How do you find wholeness?
So the real question is: Is it possible to find a sense of wholeness and completeness in life that satisfies those deep inner longings to have a meaningful life?
Yes, it certainly is possible, but it will never come just from human determination and intellectual effort.
The best answer to this question is found in the way Jesus saw and ministered to people.
Jesus saw more than just the outward appearance people presented. He didn’t accept what the five material senses had to say about someone as the final word on the subject.
Now you may be thinking right now: James, what on earth are you talking about?
Well, let me explain.
Jesus saw people’s wholeness
When someone came to Jesus to be healed, what everyone else saw was a sick person, a blind person, a cripple, or whatever the situation was. Jesus saw so much more than that. He saw the inner spiritual wholeness of whoever asked for healing.
For example, once when Jesus came into Capernaum, someone asked Jesus to heal his son.
And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
“Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed. John 4:46-53 NIV
Jesus saw the wholeness of life
Jesus could see that the life of this man’s son was not dying but living. In fact, the phrase, “your son will live,” in the original Greek is not in the future tense but in the present tense: you son lives. Jesus was actually saying: You son is not dying. He is living. Jesus saw the wholeness and completeness of this young man’s life.
This ability of Jesus, I’ll call it his vision, to see the deep spiritual wholeness of someone, who appeared to be sick, sinning, or dying always brought healing to the situation.
An extreme example of this is when Jairus’s daughter died as Jesus was coming to heal her. When the mourners were wailing over her untimely death, Jesus boldly stated, against all evidence to the contrary,
“She is not dead but asleep.” Luke 8:52 NIV
No wonder those mourners laughed him to scorn. They knew she was dead.
But here again, Jesus saw something they didn’t. He saw the wholeness of this girl’s life. He saw her as complete and whole and alive. He said, “She’s not dead.”
Spiritual vision
This deep, spiritual vision brought healing.
Look at any of the healings Jesus performed. He has different ways of saying things depending on the situation and the person he was talking to, but his method is the same. Jesus sees a person’s spiritual wholeness, which always brings healing.
Remember the time Jesus healed the cripple man who was brought to him on a cot and let down through the roof of the room Jesus was in?
Jesus didn’t just instantly restore this man’s physical wholeness. There was more to be healed than just his body. Jesus detected in this man a sense of guilt because of sin, or you could say, a sense of incompleteness or lack of feeling forgiveness. It was an incomplete sense of his relationship with God because of something he did in the past.
Here again, Jesus saw what other did not. He saw the man’s wholeness and freedom from sin.
Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Matthew 9:2 NIV
Jesus saw his moral and spiritual wholeness
He did not say, “Your sins will be forgiven.” He saw it as a present fact and declared it to be so.
This upset the religious authorities who were present, but Jesus stood boldly for this man’s wholeness.
So that’s the first part of this healing is when the man realized his sins are forgiven and are no longer a ball and chain around his heart. He gets a glimpse of his moral and spiritual wholeness.
But Jesus didn’t stop there. He commands the man,
“Get up, take your mat and go home.” Matthew 9:6 NIV
And that’s exactly what he did.
Jesus saw this man’s wholeness. And he helped the man see it too. Jesus spoke to him with authority when he told him to get up and go home. Jesus was not just hoping this man might be healed. He saw that he was already spiritual whole.
Jesus’s spiritual vision had the effect of turning on a spiritual light so others could see the man’s wholeness as well.
How did Jesus do it all?
Now you may be wondering at this point: Hey James, how did Jesus do this? How did he see someone’s wholeness even though it looked like they were sick or dying? They were really sick and Jesus healed them. Weren’t these just miracles he did because he was the Son of God?
Well, yes, Jesus was and is the Son of God. But the healings Jesus performed were not miracles that can never be repeated. Jesus was able to heal because he had a different perspective from which he looked at people and situations.
Now, if you’ve been listening to The Bible Speaks to You Podcast for a while, you’ve heard me talk about this before.
Jesus began his ministry declaring,
…the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17 KJV
In this kingdom of heaven that is at hand, there is no sickness or sin, no death or dying, no incompleteness. Everyone and everything is whole, harmonious, loved, and loving.
Jesus saw their wholeness in heaven
In heaven, which Jesus knew was present and at hand, He could see people from the perspective of what was true about them in heaven.
Where everyone else saw a sinner, Jesus saw the wholeness of that person’s purity and innocence. Where others saw a blind person, Jesus saw someone whose vision was whole. Where others were sure someone was dying or dead, Jesus saw their life in all its wholeness as it exists in heaven.
It was this vision of man’s complete, spiritual wholeness in heaven that brought physical and mental wholeness here on earth to the people Jesus healed.
But Jesus wasn’t interested in just restoring someone to physical wholeness. He was more interested in the spiritual wholeness of his followers. And he freely shares what is required to experience this spiritual wholeness. Jesus says to his disciples, which includes you and me,
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John 15:10-12 NIV
Jesus isn’t just talking here about human happiness or just human love here. It’s the deep and complete spiritual love and joy which come when you live in obedience to and in relationship with God.
We can follow Christ
This is something you and I can do. We can obey Christ. We can be in relationship with God. We can experience the wholeness of the joy Jesus had because he obeyed his heavenly Father and lived in relationship with God.
Just as Jesus could see the kingdom of heaven is at hand, so can you and I. It is here to be seen. Jesus told us to look for it, to search for it, first and foremost in our lives.
…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, Matthew 6:33 NIV
Jesus would not tell us to seek and search for something we wouldn’t be able to find. He knew we have the ability to discern spiritually this heaven at hand and bear witness to what is true there. To the degree you can “see” what is true in heaven about yourself and others, you’ll see more evidence of heaven here on earth in healing and the restoration of wholeness.
A lot of people, in fact, most of the world, will tell you this is not possible, to see heaven at hand. If they believe in heaven at all, they think you can only get there after you die.
You don’t have to be influenced by this perspective. And that’s all it is; it’s a perspective. They’re looking at things from the perspective of what is true here on earth. They’re not looking from the perspective of what is true in heaven. But you can.
Holy Spirit reveals your wholeness
However, I have to add, you cannot see this spiritual perspective with your human mind or intellect, or with your physical eye balls. It is a spiritual process. Well, that’s not quite the right word. It’s a spiritual experience.
Paul puts it this way in
However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2:9, 10 NIV
In other words, Paul is saying this vision of what is true in heaven, the wholeness and fullness which God has prepared for us and already exists in heaven, can only be discerned spiritually because God is revealing it to us through the Holy Spirit.
Wholeness in Christ
Have you ever felt you haven’t had much if any of this revelation of spiritual wholeness from the Holy Spirit? Sometimes it seems even the possibility of it is far away in time and space.
But Paul’s words stand as a promise whatever your circumstances are. God has and is always revealing to you what is true in heaven, your God-ordained and God-maintained wholeness. Even if you don’t see or feel this wholeness, which is yours as a child of God, it still is very much present and part of who you are spiritually.
Jesus came, among other reasons, to show us who we are as children of God. If anyone was ever aware of his completeness and wholeness it was Jesus. And because he was so conscious of this, he was able to share it with us. In fact, his cup, his heart, overflowed with wholeness and we are the recipients.
John puts it this way,
Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, John 1:16 CSB
Paul’s promise of wholeness
Paul also talks about how we receive the fullness of Christ.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV
I love that phrase. It promises that we attain “the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” This comes from all the members of the body of Christ working together in unity and building each other up.
If you’re not experiencing a sense of wholeness in your life, it might be a good time to think about your place and role in the body of Christ as a whole and how you can work together in unity with other members in the body of Christ who may have different roles and functions from you.
Can you see the wholeness and fullness of Christ? Can you see your place in that wholeness? Can you see others there as well? If not, there’s work to be done, prayers to be prayed, and pride to be dissolved.
Your wholeness
You are complete. You are whole. Right now.
But you’ll never see it by looking at yourself from the perspective of what is true and important to the material world.
If Jesus was physically here like he was 2,000 years ago, he would see your completeness and show it to you. Fortunately, the eternal Christ is here and bearing witness to your wholeness, your deep, all-encompassing spiritual wholeness, and revealing it to you through the Holy Spirit.
You have the ability to receive this revelation, accept it as true, and embrace your wholeness in every detail of your life.
If you ever feel incomplete, that you don’t have all you need, or you’re not being your whole self, shift your perspective from judging yourself from how the world defines you and what is insists is important to the perspective of what is already true about you in heaven, this very moment.
In heaven, which is here spiritually, you are whole. You are complete and nothing can ever change this spiritual fact.
Cherish this God-given wholeness. It is your birthright in heaven and on earth.
∞∞∞∞∞
Photo Credit: Joshua Woroniecki
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by learning to think, pray, and love like Jesus. Contact him here.
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Bible References
John 4:46-53 NIV
46 And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.
47 When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
48 “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
49 The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
50 “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed.
51 While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.
52 When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
53 Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.
Luke 8:52 NIV
52 “She is not dead but asleep.”
Matthew 9:2 NIV
2 Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”
Matthew 9:6 NIV
6 “Get up, take your mat and go home.”
Matthew 4:17 KJV
17 …the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
John 15:10-12 NIV
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Matthew 6:33 NIV
33 …seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
1 Corinthians 2:9, 10 NIV
9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—
10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
John 1:16 CSB
16 Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness,
Ephesians 4:11-13 NIV
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up
13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
