Paul says in Colossians 2:10, “and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” If you are a Christian, you are complete in Him. You are complete in Christ because He is sufficient in every way. The surpassing theme of the New Testament boils down to that simple statement. Everything from Matthew to Revelation speaks to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul also says in I Corinthians 1:30 that Christ “became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus told Paul that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Paul continues to then say, “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” Ephesians 1:3 says that in Christ, we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. And Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”
Having the Lord Jesus Christ is to have everything needed in spiritual life for all time and eternity. To have Him is to have everything. Not to have Him is to have nothing at all. All joy, peace, meaning, value, purpose, hope, fulfillment in life now and forever is found in Christ. And when a person receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they enter in to an all-sufficient relationship with an all-sufficient Savior.
We live in a time when there is a fair amount of confusion on this point. Jesus Christ is simply something that you can add to what you already have. You cannot simply “add Jesus” to what you already have. And you cannot add anything to Him.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matt. 13:44-46). Jesus’ point is that we give up all because of the significance and sufficiency of the One whom we find—Christ Himself.
That is an exchange of all that I am and have for all that He is. There are many who want to use the name of Christ and might even say they believe in Jesus Christ, but at the core, it is Christ plus something: human intellect, philosophy, mystical experience, ritual or ceremony, or even self-denial–Christ plus a lot of things. If He is sufficient, you need Christ alone. You add nothing to Christ. His directive is to abandon anything we can bring to the table and take up our cross and follow Him. And that’s an exchange worth making.