Empty Hearts Produce Empty Lives.
“You may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:19 NLT.
My comments today are about, “Empty Hearts.”
Life can and should be exhilarating. But too soon, life fills with routines and responsibilities. Remember when life was exciting, exhilarating, and filled with anticipation? Remember Christmas when you were a child, your first day of school, your driver’s license, your first date, or finally and lastingly falling in love?
But everyday life doesn’t always feel that way. Yet in Christ, life can be that way. Little by little, each day the daily stuff of life wears away the mysteries and wonder. School introduces homework, and a job demands even harder work. Dating becomes complicated, even confusing. Marriage is even more complex at times. A driver’s license and car require gasoline, insurance, repairs, and responsibilities. Falling in love eventually requires rent or mortgage, and bills.
Too soon, spontaneity yields to a schedule that becomes repetitive, and you find yourself trudging through life feeling unsettling emptiness, with something deep inside telling you that life is meant to be more. That experience is not because of what you put into your life. That results from what you leave out of your life.
Life without Jesus as its center will never be all that you long for your life to be. Absolutely nothing can take God’s place or fill the void His absence leaves. You see that void, that emptiness you feel in your soul, runs deep. You cannot mask the emptiness, nor fill it with enough stuff. You cannot ignore it with busyness, nor silence it with noise.
Francis Schaeffer, noted theologian and Christian philosopher, wrote, “Man has a purpose. You and I were created to be in relationship with God. When a person forgets his purpose, he forgets who he is and what life means.” Life does not work well when you forget who you are and what life means. Life cannot be what it is meant to be, when you leave God out at the fringes, or dismiss Him altogether.
God alone makes sense of everything else about your life. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life – life in its fullness.” John 10:10 TEV. Whatever you have or do, God will make it enough. God makes friendships and relationships enriching. God makes who you are, meaningful and satisfying. God makes what you have fulfilling and rewarding. And God makes what you can become even more than you hope.
God forgives your past and fills your future with hope. He fulfills today with satisfaction, and every tomorrow with new possibilities. I l love the promise in this verse, “I know the plans I have for you, ‘says the Lord, They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 NLT. Embrace your future. Hold fast to hope.
The Bible narrative begins with these words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void, and darkness covered . . and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2 NKJV. Anyone’s life is unclear, until Jesus is invited to come in and set it right. Jesus will overflow your with life with fullness. Jesus brings light and understanding where there was darkness and confusion.
He is there, just waiting for your invitation to do so today, and our gracious God will affirm every day that follows. The Apostle Paul described filling the void of an empty heart and life in thus way, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you may know the love of Christ that passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Read Ephesians 3:14-19 NLT.
Never live your life – even a moment of your life – without Jesus overflowing in your heart.
Today, I pray for you to make room for Jesus in your life every day.