In Today’s World, Is Jesus Enough?

It’s the year 2019. Two-thousand years plus some since a man named Jesus walked on this Earth. He was born of a virgin in a small town in the Middle East. He was raised as a blue-collar carpenter, had a weird locust eating cousin, and started walking around telling people he was God.

The funny thing is, some people believed him. He developed a pretty big following, too. At first it was great! He healed people of their diseases, made the blind see…and he even raised one of his friends from the dead. Talk about some ground breaking, head turning stuff. He had multitudes of people following him around just to hear what he had to say. Some of them knew that if they touched even his robe, they would be healed.

The huge throngs of people literally ate up the miracles and the free food. This guy was great. He argued with the Pharisees and Sadducees…made them look like fools. He knew his Old Testament for sure. Then he started claiming some pretty outlandish things. It started rubbing people the wrong way, it made them uncomfortable.

This Jesus started claiming he was greater than Moses. Of all things! Moses, the one who God entrusted to give his people the Law. This man was claiming he was here to fulfill that very Law.

He even had the gall to say David, great King David, would call him—Jesus, Lord.

He looked at the temple where the center of Jewish culture dwelt and said it would be destroyed.

He said “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

He called himself water, bread, shepherd, light, vine, and life.

Slowly, the popular man was becoming not so popular.

He started to seem a little extreme. It was so great at first because he was giving the people free stuff and pumping them up to see amazing things. Then they started to think people might affiliate them with this extremist, who was now claiming he would be going away soon. Some of his followers expected him to raise up an army to fight the powers that held them down. Well, that didn’t happen.

The 12 guys that were left, along with a few stragglers and some women, kept on following him.

It was Passover Week, and Jesus was still saying some strange things about his death. Until one night, after an uncomfortable stay in a Garden, some Roman soldiers came for him.

I can just imagine his friends’ horror and shock that one of their own had betrayed their leader.

So they took him away to the higher-ups to be questioned. He was passed around the High priests, and magistrates until they, the people who had thought he was so great at first, demanded he die. They said he claimed to be God. He made himself a King. So for this, they wanted rid of him for good.

He was put in the place of a thief named Barabbas, and carried a heavy wooden cross up a hill. He was beaten and scourged. He was spit on and made fun of. They hated him so much, they had finally gotten rid of this man who had applied their old testament prophecies to himself.

Finally, they watched as he was nailed to the cross. His friends stood around, hardly believing what was happening.

He died. The ground shook, the sky got dark, and one of the Roman soldiers said, “Surely this man was innocent.” The veil in the temple was ripped from top to bottom. The end had come and his friends buried him in a new tomb.

Then three days later, Jesus wasn’t in the tomb anymore. His friends couldn’t believe it and ran to see for themselves. Well, it was true, he wasn’t in the tomb, but who would have done such a horrible thing as taking his body?

They didn’t take his body. He was alive! He appeared again to his friends, the disciples, and even ate food with them. He told them so many wonderful things and now their eyes were opened to the mysteries he spoke to them just weeks before. It was all starting to make sense. Everything they knew from the Old Testament was fulfilled right before their eyes in this man—Jesus.

He stayed with them for a while, then went up in the sky right in front of them. He left them a commandment to tell the whole world what they had seen and heard. Jesus is now seated at the right hand of his Father, and we are waiting for him to come back to get us so we can be with him.

Is this story enough for us now? After all, it’s been 2,000 years and so much has changed. We are educated, independent American’s with so much going for us. We have money, talents, religion, and enough ingenuity to get us into heaven, why do we need Jesus?

Strip away your outer credentials, and what is left? We are all sinners from birth and if we think we do enough good to shift the scales in our favor, we are kidding ourselves. What hope is there for us? What can we do to not go to hell?

Here’s the thing. We can do nothing.

But Jesus is enough.

Jesus paid the penalty that we owed for just being sinful humans. On our own, no matter how hard we try, we can’t possible pay off that debt. We’re in it too deep. That sounds hopeless. But it’s not!

Jesus is enough.

What an amazing love and grace that has been extended toward us. That we would get an offer of a free gift. Totally free. There’s no way we could earn it. We can’t pay for it. We can’t give enough money to the church, volunteer enough time, walk down 100 aisles, be good enough…but Jesus is enough. The perfect, sinless, Son of God died our death and gave us a chance to not only live with him; but gave us the right to become children of God.

If you’re 21st century mind isn’t blown, what will impress you?

Do you realize how far we are separated from God on our own? The only way to bridge that humongous gap is through Jesus.

He is so much more than enough. Our minds can’t comprehend what he has done for us. But one day, if you believe he is enough, we will see him and understand completely.

He is the same today as he was yesterday, and will be forever. Jesus is enough.