"All of God in all of me"

In recounting her journey to Christ as a young college student, Jill Briscoe tells of a little nurse who led her to the Lord during a hospital stay. The night Jill was saved and every night thereafter,  that wise little nurse encouraged her to go to sleep saying:

All of God in all of me.

Jill says, as a result of that truth etching itself in her mind and heart, she never doubted that when she received Christ, she had gotten all there is of God. 

... If the spirit is a person, then you can't receive a "bit" of the Spirit, just as you can't receive only a part of a person. So I had been given all of God I was going to get ...*

And that's just where many of us struggle as Christians for a long time. How to get more of God's love; how to get forgiven fully and finally; how to get God's peace, joy, wisdom. So we jump through all the Christian "hoops."

The real problem is that we treat God as if He's the Giver of "stuff" that we need apart from Who He is. We think of ourselves as separate from the Person of all persons ... and then we are continually asking for Him to "send down" the stuff we need ... which we believe He will if we ask correctly and act correctly etc. etc.

No, we are not separate from our God if we know Him through Jesus Christ our Savior. We are one. We are in union with Him. He indwells us, and we live in Him.

And the amazing thing is that He doesn't just HELP us live life. He IS life and will live it in and through us if we let Him ... and that's called faith, trust, yielding.

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 NLT

Do you need to love? The Loving Christ will love in and through you as you let Him.
Do you need to forgive? The Forgiving Christ will forgive in and through you as you let Him.
Do you need to be patient? The Patient Christ will be patient in and through you as you let Him.
Do you need courage? The Courageous Christ will be courageous in and through you as you let Him.
What do you need today, right now? The (fill in the blank) Christ will be that in and through you as you let Him.

Isn't that astounding? That the fullness of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit is my constant Personal "Possession": All of Him in all of me!

So I guess then the issue, while we walk on this earth in this fragile humanness of ours, is will I trust Him? yield to Him? believe Him? And as Jill says,

My job from then on was to make sure He was receiving all of me.*

Brothers and sisters, in light of all I have shared with you about God’s mercies, I urge you to offer your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God, a sacred offering that brings Him pleasure; this is your reasonable, essential worship.
Romans 12:1 VOICE

O may it ever be so, our Glorious Indwelling King. Teach us to yield to You who lives in us and wants to live through us. May we ever be Your instruments to show forth Your Glory on this earth ... till You take us home. Amen and amen.

________________________

* from Jill Briscoe, A Little Pot of Oil, p. 21

If you would like to explore these truths in more depth, please consider my book, by clicking on this link, The With-ness of our God