Our Lord Jesus is not just enough, He is more than enough. No matter the problem, He is the solution. No matter how dark it is, His light shines brighter. No matter the emptiness, He can fill you. No matter the sin, He paid the price. No matter the illness, He is your healer. No matter the pain, He is your comforter. No matter the deficiency, He is your sufficiency.
The Lord Jesus is so much higher, so much greater, so much deeper, so much everything, that there is nothing in which you cannot go to Him and be abundantly satisfied.
He is the One who always was. “’I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,’ says the Lord, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’” (Revelation 1:8).
He is the One that never changes. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).
He is the Lord over everything. “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3).
He is involved in everything. “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36).
Marks of a life sufficient in Christ
There are marks that can only be found in the soul of a saint that has found their sufficiency in Christ. This list is not meant to shame you where you are lacking, but to encourage you to desire the life made sufficient by Christ alone.
For you the things of the world just do not matter very much anymore. You are at peace even when there is good reason not to be.
You love people that do not love you back. You forgive others even when you cannot forget all they have done to you. You are rejected by the world, and you don’t care.
You do not need to tell others how humble you are. You listen more than you talk. You are not led by the opinions of man, but the oracles of God. You would rather Christ get all the credit and you get none.
You don’t have to pretend, about anything. You are the same in private as you are in public. You don’t care what your purpose is, only that you live it. You live doctrine instead of debate it.
You are at peace. You are not anxious. You have a joy even in suffering. You give as if you would never run out. You see abundance everywhere you look.
You don’t have to pretend to be holy any longer. People see Jesus in you and see the fruit in your life. People of the world do not understand you. People of God recognize Christ in you right when they meet you.
All you need is Christ, the rest is but an accessory.
The Danger of Self-Help
The greatest enemy to the sufficiency of Christ in you is your own ideals of self-sufficiency.
The self-help teaching of our day is the trickery of the Devil meant to destroy you by your own hand. “In his self-sufficiency he will be in distress; Every hand of misery will come against him” (Job 20:22). You cannot receive the sufficiency of Christ in whatever you are relying upon in yourself.
Every effect is limited by its own cause. Never squander the potential of Christ in you.
The problem is never that you are not strong enough, but that you are not weak enough. Natural strength is the hindrance to spiritual power. The Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). There is no limit to the power of Christ in you, but you.
Anxiousness is the currency of self-sufficiency. He will never be sufficient for you if you have a single trace of self-sufficiency in you.
Growing in faith is not like climbing a mountain, but falling backwards into a deep canyon. One is by your effort, the other must rely entirely on Him. Everything you try to do yourself proves who you rely on. Stop white knuckling your way to a higher faith, and simply fall into it. “And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith’” (Luke 17:5).
Self-sufficiency is the enemy of dependency on Christ. Satan’s most powerful weapon against you is you. If you depend on yourself then you depend on a fool. You against you is checkmate with no victory. Jesus said, “…without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). When there is nothing left of you, then Christ will be your everything.
You cannot study yourself into the sufficiency of Christ because all you are doing is something self-sufficient. The harder you study, the more it reflects the pride in you. Studying is good, but do so in submission. Not to gain, but to receive. Not to be more, but to worship the only One who is more.
We worship ourselves as studiers of doctrine more than we are willing to fall down onto our faces and worship the One to whom all doctrines are pointed. The Lord Jesus taught, “But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:38-40).
If you must have a mantle of a doctrine, then let it be this: “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Sufficiency in Suffering
Suffering does not mean you do not have His sufficiency, but it will reveal to what degree you do have it.
You cannot feel sorry for yourself and have the unhindered life of Christ within you. The one will cancel out the other. As the darkness reveals the light, so let your suffering reveal the Lord in you.
The Lord Jesus told Paul, “…’My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ [so Paul wrote] Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Never squander the power only produced through your suffering.
It is in the depths of your deficiencies upon which the Lord Jesus can fill you up with all His sufficiency’s. People could not see the light of Christ in you unless the Lord places you in the darkness. Shine in the dark places, He has you there for a reason.
Suffering is the window through which you either see the purposes of Christ or the hopelessness in yourself. Jesus never peddled an easy Christian life, but a life crucified unto Himself. Only the buses to hell have padded seats, the road to heaven is never easy.
Faith is not a path out of circumstances, but through them. People think the life of a saint is easy. It is not easy, but it is right. It is only when you reach the point of Christ alone that you have everything you ever needed. “My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience” (James 5:10). The example you follow is the example you are.
Let Jesus be sufficient for you
Is Jesus your husband or still just your boyfriend? Stop playing house and get intimate. “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2). Is He enough for you? Are you ready to commit your life to Him?
The Lord gave me a sweet rebuke one day. I was thinking of what another had, a spiritual gift, and it was something that I did not. Then the Lord whispered into my heart, “but you have Me…”. Never desire the gifts more than the Giver.
The Lord Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4). It is the fruit that bears witness of the abiding. A branch never strives, just abides.
You don’t need another program, you need Jesus. The sufficiency of Christ can replace every deficiency in you. He will never raise you to level two until you have been obedient on level one. Be obedient to the level upon which you are on right now.
You cannot achieve spiritual goals through natural methods. Stop only being slain in the spirit, and get back up and walk in the Spirit. It is not enough to experience His presence, but you must live in it. Once he is enough for you, nothing else is needed.
Don’t just imagine the abundant life in Christ, but live it. The great lie is that the abundant life is found in the things of the world. The great truth is that the abundant life is found in Jesus alone. Give your life to Christ and He will give you a life worth living.
A life sacrificed to God is a life set free from the tyranny of you. Dare to live a life of abandon, where you abandon yourself that God would give to you who you were meant to be. “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it'” (Matthew 16:24-25).
Faith is not your ability to have Christ, but trusting entirely that Christ has you.
The Lord Jesus says, “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). Just go to Him, it is that simple.
Blessings to you in Christ,
Paul