Lately I’ve been burdened by a message growing louder and louder within the Christian community, especially aimed toward women. “You are enough.” There are memes, blog posts, and articles trying to convince us that we can stop striving and rest in assurance that we, in and of ourselves, are beautiful and perfect and good. To be sure, it’s a sweet sounding message. The only problem is…it is a lie.  I’m sorry.  I know this is hard to hear.

Dear reader, it is not we who are enough. Yes, we can be beautiful or smart or athletic or rich, but the one thing we cannot be is enough. We strive hard to become more of all those things so that we can reach a magical point of arrival, but who have you known–who have you ever known who reached a day of believing he or she had reached destination enough? Who has stopped going to the gym because his or her body has hit that perfect point? Stopped going to the salon? Stopped working? Stopped dieting? Stopped attempting to be more, do more, earn more, achieve more? No, we keep striving, because in our hearts we know we are not enough.

We were never meant to be enough…Jesus came and died to become our “enough.” But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8, ESV)  It is in Jesus that we can stop striving. It is in Jesus that we become enough, not because of who we are or what we’ve done, but because the Son of the living God has shed his blood to make us pure, holy, and perfect–a perfection not because of ourselves but but in spite of us. It is not our capability but our inability to be great that makes room for his greatness and glory to be displayed. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made great in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9)

Let us not for another minute puff ourselves and one another up with a lie we deep down don’t believe anyway. Rather, let us proclaim the amazing truth that Jesus is enough! In our weakness, he is strong. In our darkness, he is light. On our very worst days, we remain unblemished in the sight of God, because in Christ we have been declared perfect! He is our enough! As John MacArthur put it, “To have Him is to have everything. Not to have Him is to have absolutely nothing at all. All joy, peace, meaning, value, purpose, hope, fulfillment in life now and forever is bound up in Christ. And when a person receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they enter into an all-sufficient relationship with an all-sufficient Christ.”

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal. 6:14)

Jesus is enough!