When I was a child, Christmas time in Missouri at my grandparents’ home was incomparable. It wasn’t exactly because of gifts that were exchanged. It wasn’t because of who gave the best gifts. It was everything else—the cold weather, the love shared, the food eaten, the family visited beyond those who gathered at my grandparents’ house, the family who did gather at my grandparents’ house, etc. (I could go on and on to list how special it was—that made Christmas enough. Nothing else was needed. It was contentment.
Earlier today I heard a beautiful song I Need No Other sung by Todd Agnew. There are a very few words in that song—that no matter how many times I hear it and tears shed—that grab my attention and keep it held. These words are found in the chorus, “I need no other argument, I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me”. There are a few verses that I would like to associate with these words and then pursue a thought that kept me from finding rest for my weary eyes despite having to get up in a few short hours.
2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God” and 2 Corinthians 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace about toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” Now I would like to take these matters of sufficiency found in God and His grace to tie it with what Philip said in John 14:8 (emphasis added), “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
What makes us say, it is enough? Is it when all we desire became real or possessed? Is it when all closed doors are open to us? Is it when what we desire (as in Calling) including a special someone in our life arrives? Is it when our bank account never seems to be low? Is it when a sense of peace (the lack of conflict) fills our life?
I think of the small group of twelve men gathered in that upper room. Nomadic life, miracles done, God moving, lives touched, and for a man to desire that one more thing and then it will be enough? Was is it for us? What is that one thing that makes it sufficient or enough? What motivates someone who preaches before hundreds to later walk away from it all? What drives a person to forsake a personal relationship with Jesus to abandon it rather than allowing God to build upon His foundation, even if that requires destroying everything in a person’s life to get him/her to that point of God doing something personal and profound? What makes someone leave a direction he/she said was the plan and will of God to later say, I never heard the voice of God I was just following you? When is the cutting edge, sanctification, clear decisions and standards of righteousness cast aside for complacency, contentment, and a religion is sufficient?
To then compel (in contrast) for others who didn’t walk away, who didn’t deviate even if the road was hard to hoe or had a few curves along the way, who at the end of their lives knowing that their Christian walk wasn’t a sprint and peak moments during youth but was a long-haul marathon where decisions and convictions at the end were/are just as strong at the end as they were (yea, perhaps even stronger now versus then) when someone early committed their lives to Christ. Are we a Caleb who, in his old age, was preserved to take a mountain with the same zeal and strength he had 40 years prior? Are we a Carman who’s concert was cancelled—smaller venues than years before but still a gospel message preached, still an altar call given, still hearts converted to Jesus—only because his body finally gave out with fighting against cancer and everything else he had to go be with the Lord? Rather than coasting across our finish line to hear the words of Christ “well done good and faithful servant”, do we or ought we to push (harder) like Paul who pressed on who near the end said, we are sufficient? Do we need any further proof? Do we need another plea for us to surrender? Or is it enough that Jesus died and that He died for me?