How many times do you use the words “if only”? I certainly couldn’t count how many times I have thought or said those words! If only I could get that fixed or if only I could afford that or if only I could get some rest. Yet, something I have been challenged with these last few weeks is the question: “Is Jesus Enough?”
The question hasn’t been there because of great personal tragedy or excessive hardship. Rather, the question has been there just as I go through the normal difficulties of life. Is my hope in things going the way I want them to go or is my hope in Christ? Is my hope in effectiveness in that which I set out to do or is my hope in Christ? Can I be content in Christ when the things I wrongly look to for comfort fade away?
David wrote of this in Psalm 16 when he said, “O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance.” Where was David’s hope here? His hope was in the Lord and regardless of what life brought, David could say “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance.”
Paul shared a similar thought in Philippians 3, writing, “I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.”
As God grows us in Him, He removes our hope in other things and grows us to hope and rest more in Christ. Paul experienced this for he went on to write in Philippians 3:12, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” My prayer is that I will grow in this as well. That I will grow to be able to say with more and more confidence: “Yes! Jesus is enough!” That is my prayer for you as well!