959 - Sufficient and Supreme
Friends: No joke: Jesus is enough, but there is so much more … some good, some not so much. Blessings, Bob
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Spirituality Column #959
April 1,
2025
Common
Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Sufficient
and Supreme
By Bob
Walters
“My grace
is sufficient for you…” – Jesus, to Paul, 2 Corinthians 12:9
“… and in
Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and
authority.” – Paul, Colossians 2:10
I’ll say
right here that Jesus isn’t the only thing we need in this life.
Jesus IS all
we need to be saved from our sin, restored to our relationship with God, to
discover objective truth and purpose in this life, and to rest easy in the faith,
hope, and love eternity promises. That’s life in Jesus, but not everyone buys
in.
I guess it
depends what we want. We can desire,
attain, and have all kinds of stuff in this life: work hard, be smart, pursue
and nurture love, have a family, enjoy a hobby, follow a mission, chase a prize
of wealth, fame, fortune, power, or happiness.
All these are available with or without our active engagement, on our
part, with Jesus.
How can that
be said? Simply think of all the people who
are doing perfectly well in the here and now without a life in Christ. We all
know – and have known – many.
Not
everybody understands, or believes, in the eternal consequence of unbelief.
Life seems
to go on regardless of what we think of Jesus, good and bad. On the flip side
of worldly comfort, think of the marvelous warriors for Christ suffering greatly
with grief, illness, or human failure who run and cling to Jesus, understanding
His grace.
Does a
believer need more than Jesus? The church answer, and ultimate truth, is
certainly, “No. Jesus is sufficient.” Let’s talk, though, about the richness
this life offers when we do stand with Jesus, trust him as Lord and Savior, and
live to glorify Him.
What else do
we need? We need faith. Given by the
Holy Spirit. We need a trustworthy Bible
translation that sticks to scripture.
Also given by the Holy Spirit. We
need Christian fellowship, a reliable church and preacher for instruction,
direction, and inspiration, and we need the love and hope of God that we share
with all the world.
We can be
creative, fruitful, joyful, and holy. All of it, driven by the Holy Spirit.
Modern Bible
Christianity gives short shrift, sadly, to the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus and God, and then any number of
corollary doctrines, add-ons, rites, duties, fashions-of-the-moment, and
culture-driven adjustments of “what Jesus can do for me.”
But the
necessary parts reside in the Trinity – Father, Son, and Spirit – whose divine
relationship is the authority for our two Great Commandments from Jesus: Love God,
and love others. Jesus is our true north, and the Spirit is our compass.
We can do a
lot in this life without Jesus. But without
Him, the Bible and my heart tell me that the love stops here and stays here. I’d
rather not go to Hell, and I love living this life knowing God, Jesus, the
Spirit, truth, love, good, and evil all objectively exist and form the divine
reality we can trust as we live our days. Life has permanence.
Trying to
add our human “truth” – i.e., worldly opinions, caprices, and fears – to
scripture is a fool’s errand. Solomon had it right when he said in
Ecclesiastes, multiple times, “Everything under the sun is meaningless.”
Meaning resides with Christ alone.
We can “fake
it ‘til we make it,” pursuing the passions of this life or even suffering this
life’s awful turns. But why ditch the Spirit and rely solely on our own
understanding?
Jesus is
sufficient and supreme for eternal life. Extra baggage is unnecessary.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) cites John 14:6: There is one
door to heaven, Jesus.