Jesus is not enough.
Every time I hear the all-too-common phrase that “Jesus is enough”, I cringe. The word “enough” feels so bland in light of who Jesus is. His beauty, his kindness, his mercy, his compassion, his long-suffering love…
Jesus who came as a servant-leader; teaching, rebuking, healing, correcting, and turned the world upside down in their unmet expectation of who he would be compared to the reality of who he actually was.
Jesus, who looked at me with eyes of compassion while I was suffering in the pit of my own self-righteousness, whose hand remained on me and decision to call me never swayed.
Jesus who calmed the storms of my raging heart, mind, and soul and offered me true peace as I put my rest in him; who beckoned me to give up as I lay crumpled at his feet. Jesus who zeroed my eyes in to where they only saw him and no longer cared to look at the loves and lusts of the world that once distracted me.
Beautiful Jesus. My savior, my peace giver, my shepherd, and my friend. Oh, how precious he is to this undeserving sinner who was without hope but now has every hope as I’m now distracted by heaven and the simple joy of knowing him and being known by him. Whose truth and beauty and light and love pours through my lips as I recount all that he has done for me.
I ponder on who I am, now, because of his blood poured out for me. How, when he hung there on that cross and suffered, he thought of me. As I knew not what I was doing, he offered grace and mercy while he stretched out his nail pierced hand to me; extending forgiveness and pulling me into new life as his hand firmly gripped mine.
No, Jesus is not enough. He’s not a missing piece to add to the treasury of my own, fallible heart. He is so much more than that, because he is all.
When Jesus called himself I AM, to communicate who he was to our finite minds, breaking the boundaries of time in language and answering in a bewildering way, I am satisfied with the attempt to imperfectly conclude who Jesus is by calling him ALL. Jesus is all.
All is defined this way: “the whole of one’s energy or interest.”
When Jesus saves, this is who he becomes to the bedraggled sinner after their long, painful journey to the cross. When we finally arrive through those twisted roads and winding streams that were all along directed by our maker, he frees us of our heavy burden. As we watch it tumble over Golgotha’s cliff, we are scooped up by our adoring Savior.
And everything in us shifts.
It’s a profound shift that only the indwelling of the Spirit could possibly produce. And Jesus becomes ALL.
As old affections grow strangely dim, Jesus becomes the whole of our energy and interest. We are finally, rightly consumed by the one true God we were created to worship all along.
Jesus is all. He is my life, my breath, and my reason. He is the warrior of my heart and my dear King.
And he will never just be enough.
He has surpassed any delight that might whisper empty promises to my heart. He is the one who took my desires, my hopes, my passions and my dreams and completely replaced them with a shining joy that can only be experienced by a thankful sinner who was nothing and nobody and is now His. There’s life that is only death until there is life with Jesus.
I am his. Jesus is all. To be nothing in this world and only be his is to have everything.
Enough. Ugh. What a small word to understand such a glorious savior.
Beautifully written!! ❤️