God is Enough

 

This new year begins with joy and with the strong conviction that God is enough. He sent Jesus into my life more than fifty years ago. I’ve been in His bootcamp for much of that time, learning how to live as a soldier for the Lord and most of the time feeling like I’d never be able to measure up. However, He finally got it through my thick skull that I will never measure up — for He does not measure me but Christ who lives in me. 

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. (Psalm 62:5–7)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

My righteousness is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The new life He gave me is His life, not a better version of my old life. For that reason, He tells me “to be renewed in the spirit of my mind, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”  (Ephesians 4:23–24)

This is an amazing resting place, part of realizing that God alone is enough — enough to be all that I need to be, and enough for all my needs. He bestows the goodness required to live here as His child and to walk through the gates of heaven: 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1–4)

Again, and I can shout it: GOD IS ENOUGH!

In our church, this has become a motto using slightly different words. We say ONLY GOD when He does what only He can do. For example, every year in December, our church budget faces a shortage. This year it was overwhelmingly huge, yet yesterday morning our lead pastor announced that the giving that week not only met the budget but exceeded it. We said, “Only God” and “God is enough!”

The devotional reading for today says, “No soul can really be at rest until it has given up dependence on everything else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone.” It seems to me that many of us stubbornly put our expectation in other things and have to learn that nothing but disappointment will be the result, as if we have to touch the stove before we believe it is hot. How sad. The ideal is like Abraham who simply believed God and obeyed Him. 

Yesterday the Lord spoke to me again about keeping my focus on Him so that I’m not plagued by my attention-deficit tendencies. Stop all self-effort and simply trust Him to do what I cannot do. Again He tells me that He is enough.

PRAY: Jesus, what a delight to rest in You. May this new year be marked by a deeper faith in the reality that You are enough! I can safely and confidently rest in You for everything I need and to hear my cries and answer my prayers! You are enough!