The Sufficiency Of God

He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,” so that we confidently say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?”
–Hebrews 13:5-6

A focus on money has a way of tying us up in knots. Have you ever experienced that? It has a way of entangling us in debt and worry and greed and all sorts of other things that will trip us up in our relationship with God.

Contentment is what keeps us free from the entanglements of materialism so we can focus on running this race of the Christian life. Do you want to be content with your financial circumstances? In Philippians 4:11-13, Paul told us the secret of contentment: tying our sense of well-being not to earthly possessions or positions or people, but to Jesus Christ.

But to do that, to tie our sense of well-being to Jesus Christ, we need to acknowledge the sufficiency of God. There is no contentment apart from acknowledging and trusting the sufficiency of God. Hebrews 13:5-6 says, “[Be] content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,’ so that we confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?’”

The Hebrew Christians to whom these verses were written had experienced material loss. In fact, they had had their property seized because of their Christian faith. And the writer said, “You . . . accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one” (10:34). That better possession, that lasting one, is rooted in the sufficiency of God.

You may be in financial knots right now, tied up in worry about your financial future. Maybe you have been laid off. Maybe you have had your savings depleted. Maybe there is an expensive medical need that you have. And to be quite honest, when people who are not going through your particular problem say things like, “Oh, just trust in God. Be content with what you have,” those words seem hollow. They do not help at all.

So do not listen to my words; look at God’s Word. He is the one who said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” Or look at the testimony of one of God’s saints who suffered loss and needed God’s sufficiency. He said, “The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6). Men and women for thousands of years have trusted in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ, and they have never been disappointed. Trust in the sufficiency of God.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Detours That Destroy” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2020.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org