Is God's grace sufficient to meet my needs?
As Christians, we find complete sufficiency in Christ and His provisions for our needs. There’s no such thing as an incomplete or deficient Christian. Our Savior’s divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. Human wisdom offers nothing to augment that. Every Christian receives all he or she needs at the moment of salvation. Each one must grow and mature, but no necessary resource is missing. There’s no need to search for something more.
When Jesus completed His redemptive work on Calvary, He cried out triumphantly, “It is finished” (John
19:30). The saving work was fulfilled, completed. Nothing was omitted. And all who are recipients of that salvation are granted everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Christ (2 Pet. 1:3). In Him we have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). His grace is sufficient for every situation (2 Cor. 12:9). We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Him (Eph. 1:3). By one offering He has perfected us forever (Heb. 10:14). We are complete in Christ (Col. 2:10). What can anyone add to that?
Image via WikipediaSo to possess the Lord Jesus Christ is to have every spiritual resource. All strength, wisdom, comfort, joy, peace, meaning, value, purpose, hope, and fulfillment in life now and forever is bound up in Him. Christianity is an all-sufficient relationship with an all-sufficient Christ. There’s no reason anyone who believes God’s Word should struggle with such a self-evident truth.
But a widespread lack of confidence in Christ’s sufficiency is threatening the contemporary church. Too many Christians have tacitly acquiesced to the notion that our riches in Christ, including Scripture, prayer, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and all the other spiritual resources we find in Christ simply are not adequate to meet people’s real needs. Entire churches are committed to programs built on the presupposition that the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42) aren’t a full enough agenda for the church as it prepares to enter the complex and sophisticated world of the twenty-first century.
Sadly, many Christians are not aware of the truth about our Lord’s sufficiency. I hope they will be after reading this book. The church is in dire need of a renewed appreciation of what it means to be complete in Christ.
The failure of modern Christians to understand and appropriate
Image via Wikipedia the riches of Christ has opened the door to all kinds of aberrant influences. Bad doctrine, legalism, libertinism, humanism, and secularization—to name a few—are eroding the foundations of the Christian faith. Those satanic assaults are more subtle and therefore more dangerous than the liberalism that splintered the church at the start of this century—and they are succeeding with alarming effectiveness.
In the past two decades or so, for example, theology has become more and more humanistic. The focus has shifted from God to people and their problems, and counseling has replaced worship and evangelism as the main program of many churches. Most seminaries now put more energy into teaching ministerial students psychology than training them to preach. Evidently they believe therapists can accomplish more good in Christians’ lives than preachers and teachers. That mindset has taken the church by storm. Evangelicalism is infatuated with psychotherapy. Emotional and psychological disorders supposedly requiring prolonged analysis have become almost fashionable. An hour listening to almost any call-in talk show on Christian radio will confirm that these things are so. Or visit your local Christian bookstore and note the proliferation of so-called “Christian” recovery books. Virtually everywhere you look in the evangelical subculture, you can find evidence that Christians are becoming more and more dependent on therapists, support groups and other similar props.
This shift in the church’s focus did not grow out of some new insight gained from Scripture. Rather, it has seeped into the church from the world. It is an attack at the most basic level, challenging Christians’ confidence in the sufficiency of Christ.
“My grace is sufficient for you,” the Lord said to the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:9). The average Christian in our culture cynically views that kind of counsel as simplistic, unsophisticated, and naive. Can you imagine one of today’s professional radio counselors simply telling a hurting caller that God’s grace is enough to meet the need? Contemporary opinion is more utilitarian, valuing physical comfort more than spiritual well-being, self-esteem above Christlikeness, and good feelings over holy living. Many Christians seeking a sense of fulfillment have turned away from the rich resources of God’s all-sufficient grace and are engrossed instead in a fruitless search for contentment in hollow human teachings.
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
Image via WikipediaSo to possess the Lord Jesus Christ is to have every spiritual resource. All strength, wisdom, comfort, joy, peace, meaning, value, purpose, hope, and fulfillment in life now and forever is bound up in Him. Christianity is an all-sufficient relationship with an all-sufficient Christ. There’s no reason anyone who believes God’s Word should struggle with such a self-evident truth.But a widespread lack of confidence in Christ’s sufficiency is threatening the contemporary church. Too many Christians have tacitly acquiesced to the notion that our riches in Christ, including Scripture, prayer, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and all the other spiritual resources we find in Christ simply are not adequate to meet people’s real needs. Entire churches are committed to programs built on the presupposition that the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42) aren’t a full enough agenda for the church as it prepares to enter the complex and sophisticated world of the twenty-first century.
Sadly, many Christians are not aware of the truth about our Lord’s sufficiency. I hope they will be after reading this book. The church is in dire need of a renewed appreciation of what it means to be complete in Christ.
The failure of modern Christians to understand and appropriate
Image via Wikipedia the riches of Christ has opened the door to all kinds of aberrant influences. Bad doctrine, legalism, libertinism, humanism, and secularization—to name a few—are eroding the foundations of the Christian faith. Those satanic assaults are more subtle and therefore more dangerous than the liberalism that splintered the church at the start of this century—and they are succeeding with alarming effectiveness.In the past two decades or so, for example, theology has become more and more humanistic. The focus has shifted from God to people and their problems, and counseling has replaced worship and evangelism as the main program of many churches. Most seminaries now put more energy into teaching ministerial students psychology than training them to preach. Evidently they believe therapists can accomplish more good in Christians’ lives than preachers and teachers. That mindset has taken the church by storm. Evangelicalism is infatuated with psychotherapy. Emotional and psychological disorders supposedly requiring prolonged analysis have become almost fashionable. An hour listening to almost any call-in talk show on Christian radio will confirm that these things are so. Or visit your local Christian bookstore and note the proliferation of so-called “Christian” recovery books. Virtually everywhere you look in the evangelical subculture, you can find evidence that Christians are becoming more and more dependent on therapists, support groups and other similar props.
This shift in the church’s focus did not grow out of some new insight gained from Scripture. Rather, it has seeped into the church from the world. It is an attack at the most basic level, challenging Christians’ confidence in the sufficiency of Christ.
“My grace is sufficient for you,” the Lord said to the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:9). The average Christian in our culture cynically views that kind of counsel as simplistic, unsophisticated, and naive. Can you imagine one of today’s professional radio counselors simply telling a hurting caller that God’s grace is enough to meet the need? Contemporary opinion is more utilitarian, valuing physical comfort more than spiritual well-being, self-esteem above Christlikeness, and good feelings over holy living. Many Christians seeking a sense of fulfillment have turned away from the rich resources of God’s all-sufficient grace and are engrossed instead in a fruitless search for contentment in hollow human teachings.
