Even as believers in Christ, we are weak, broken, and inadequate for our responsibilities. We agree with Paul when he writes, “And who is adequate for these things” (2 Cor. 2:16)?
Yet we do also affirm that Christ is adequate and He is sufficient for us. He will provide all we need in every circumstance. The simple statement of Col. 3:11 bolsters us — “Christ is all, and in all.” That is, He is all-sufficient and He and His sufficiency is in (and available to) every believer in the same ways (He plays no favorites).
If we have a need, if we are inadequate, if we are “broken,” He is more than able to provide for us. (When theologians say that Christ is “sufficient,” that word “sufficient” should not be interpreted to mean, “just barely enough;” it means “super-abundance,” “all one needs,” “an unending supply for every need” and “you will never deplete the resources in Christ.”)
In his classic work, Christ All in All, Phillip Henry (the father of Matthew) writes of Christ as a sufficient provider and supplier, identifying some of the kinds of provisions of Christ:
- Rich supplies — abounding and running over (Ps. 86:5; 1 Pt. 5:10; 2 Cor. 9:9).
- Ready supplies — “we need not go far for them. They are always at hand” (Ps. 46:1-11).
- Glorious supplies — “according to his riches in glory” (Phil. 4:20).
- Gradual supplies — not receiving all His supplies, but one at a time, according to our need in that moment, “You must be willing to receive supplies as God is pleased to communicate them.”
- Universal supplies — all your needs, “there are in Christ supplies for all — all persons, at all times, in all things.”
- Undeserved supplies — for no one merits any of the provisions of God; we are “objects of mercy.”
- Covenant supplies — “made over to us by promise. And he is faithful that has promised.”
- Constant supplies — “daily, duly, forever.”
He will supply for us in our sin, in our lack of wisdom, in our spiritual neediness, in our physical neediness, in our suffering, and in our oppression. What we need, He will give.
That is the testimony of all God’s people in Scripture (it is worth making a list of the needy people of the Bible and how God provided for them, starting with Adam in Gen. 3). And it is the testimony of all God’s people in history. Consider Helen Roseveare, who served as a missionary in the Congo for about two decades (1953-1973). In the middle of that service, during the Congo’s civil war, she was arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and then brutally raped by drunken soldiers.
Her first inclination was to believe that God had failed her. And then in her suffering and pain, she experienced the sufficiency of Christ:
“There is a wonderful truth that God has enough to supply all our needs. Enough for salvation, enough for forgiveness, enough to overcome temptations, enough to persevere in adversities, enough to calm our fears and anxieties. Enough grace, enough love, enough power…This is summed up in the promise: ‘My grace is sufficient for you’ (2 Cor. 12:9). That is to say, it is enough.” [Read a testimony to her life after she died in 2016; she also wrote several books about her missionary endeavors.]
Christ. Will. Provide.
Christ. Is. Enough. For, You.
Words of Grace 