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Dear Christian: Please Stop Saying “I Am Enough.”

Writer's picture: Brian DoyleBrian Doyle

It’s amazing to me how worldliness creeps in to the church. It’s usually done through an emotional plea with some root in Biblical truth, but is absolute hogwash. One of these supposed “truisms” is the “I am enough” movement. I’ve heard it expressed in many ways “I am enough to handle anything life throws at me,” “I am holy, I am worthy, I am enough,” and things like this. If you’re standing on this, watch out, because I’m going to give a harsh yank on that rug, and you won’t be able to keep your footing. The Bible tells us we are not enough. This is an unbiblical, and quite untrue stance. This is the lie Satan told at the beginning (“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil,” Genesis 3:5), and has told ever since, even going so far as to attempt to tempt Jesus in this way (“If you’re the son of God…”). The lie of “I am enough” puts us on equal footing with God, and, if it were true, then Jesus lived, died, and rose again in vain.


The fact remains that “All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” None of us are enough or even remotely adequate. On our own, we’re rebels and thieves, living on borrowed (or stolen) breath, living on land that was created for us, but which we sold for a few pieces of fruit. God designed us to be perfect (He called us Good), but we, in our rebellion, have gone against the plan. We brought death and destruction in to the world through our sin, and we’re cursed because of it. This is who we are on our own, and this is why we’re not enough.


Thank God that the story doesn’t end there! Jesus, who is God (the second person of the Godhead -one God in three persons-, the Son of God, and the Son of David, who fulfilled some 340 prophecies in His lifetime, a statistical anomaly), put on human flesh, masking His deity. He lived as one of us, tested and tempted in every way and yet obedient to the will of His Father in all things, perfect in every way. He came to show us the way home, and to set those imprisoned by sin free, past, present and future. He was nailed to a tree, a curse according to the Law, and in doing so took the wrath of God willingly on Himself, becoming the curse for our sin although He Himself never sinned, and dying, resting in the ground for three days and rising again, putting sin to death, and removing the power death has over what God had called “good.” He is now, alive, glorified, sitting at the right hand of the Father in Power, having sent the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Godhead), to dwell in the hearts of His followers, and He is coming again some day to make all things right. We can get in on this good news by following Jesus and being born again. Jesus did not leave us as we were, for we are not enough, but He is! Don’t follow your heart or feelings, you’ll collapse under the weight of all your own shortcomings. Follow the one who does not fail, who does not change, or faint, or grow weary. He is enough. Romans 3:1-26 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,


“That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”


But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.


What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:


“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”


Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.




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