Is Jesus Enough?

There is no place like the Wilderness to come to the end of my SELF. The deeper into the Wilderness I go the more every capacity to perform in my own strength, my own understanding, even my own will dries up until I end up stalled out in the Valley of Decision. Finally at a standstill, I cry out to God, “Lord, do you not see my wounds? I am forsaken! I am persecuted! I am alone! Why meeee?” Once the dust settles and my voice has gone hoarse from the shouting, the phrase, “Me, me, me, ME!” echoes through my heart and makes me want to vomit. Conviction cuts deep. I profess that I will walk with Jesus through anything. But the reality is the minute the path gets lonely, clarity vanishes, the mountain top experience fades, and the feelings go away all I can think about is ME. In this dry and barren landscape and at the end of myself I stop long enough to hear the Lord whisper, “Am I enough?”

What a question! Is Jesus enough? Do I need fellowship with other people to sustain me or is Jesus enough? Do I need a good church or a good worship service to feed me or is Jesus enough? Do I need to be understood and accepted by others or is Jesus enough? Do I need a spiritual experience that makes me “feel” His presence or is Jesus enough? Is Jesus enough or do I need healing, blessing, promotion, affirmation, direction, vision, or even ministry to satisfy me? Is my faith all about what I need and what I want and what I do in the name of God or is being with Jesus enough?

I am done lamenting the fact that I don’t “feel” God’s presence, hear His voice, or have fellowship right now. I am starting to understand that the Lord has removed these things from me in order to expose that which takes preeminence from Him. All those things are good but they are secondary to simply being with my Lord. I don’t need fellowship to know Christ. I don’t need prophetic encounters or spiritual experiences to know Christ. I just need Him. And you know what? He needs me too. He is crying out for His people to BE with Him. To sit at His feet and relate with Him, know His heart, and minister to HIS wants, needs, and desires. He created us to love Him and to be loved by Him. Are we not called the Bride of Christ? Marriage is the most intimate relationship that we know on earth and that is what He is after.

I believe that when Jesus is enough for me and I have made ministering to Him my priority that all these things that have dried up in the Desert will return and I will begin to walk out the Kingdom of God in the overflow of love that being in right relationship to the Head brings to the Body. In the Valley of Decision I stand absolutely broken by the reality of my selfish human nature. The choice is this: To move forward on this path to a new level of dying to my SELF in order to make Jesus Christ preeminent or to turn back and walk out a more comfortable, self-centered faith that is wrapped up in what Jesus can do for me or even what I get out of what I do for Him. To the Cross I run to lay my SELF down in order to rise again in the likeness of Christ.