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You Are Enough
You are enough.
In recent years the phrase “you are enough” has become a very popular way to encourage someone to find peace with who they are and not to focus on their shortcomings or the judgments of others. One author wrote, “You are enough as you are, mess and all, beautiful and broken, showing up for your life everyday. That's all you have to be and all you have to do. You're already enough.” While I agree that we must find peace with who we are, shortcomings and all, there's just one problem with this statement.
We aren't enough.
I don't know about you, but I don't have to go back very many days; in fact I don't have to go back very many hours to find a moment that is painful evidence of the fact that I am not enough. I fail as a father. Fail as a husband. I fail as a friend. And I certainly fail as a child of God. I am not enough. And neither are you.
For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins….
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 10.1-4, 11-14
Jesus is enough.
The entire Jewish religion was not enough. All of the sacrifices that had been offered by those people from the beginning of time were not enough. But Jesus is enough. It is His offering of Himself, of His perfect life, and His broken body, of His shed blood that we are to remember. These things are enough. But it isn't enough for us to only remember the sacrifice. I think we should also remember what this sacrifice means for us, for you and for me. It is Jesus’ sacrifice that makes us enough. John calls Jesus “the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2.2) which means that He literally stands between us and God and what we are owed.
Jesus makes us enough.
And that has profound implications for who we are and how we ought to live. The Hebrew writer refers to the confidence we can have to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Hebrews 10.19-22
And we should have confidence. Not in ourselves. Not in our own perfection. But in our relationship with the One we are to remember. So maybe the author’s quote wasn't that far off, with one very important modification. One modification that we are to remember:
Because of Jesus, you are enough as you are.
Mess and all. Beautiful and broken. Showing up for your life every day. That's all you have to be and all you have to do. Because of Jesus, you are already enough.
