Ministers Blogs
“Are You All You Can Be?”
Categories: Christian PrinciplesBy Steve Fuchs
Are you meeting your full potential? What would it take to make you successful intellectually, socially, morally, and materially? Can you be all you can be without Jesus? Sadly many think they can be complete without Jesus.
A young man who had attained much success morally, politically, socially, and materially came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to have eternal life. (Matthew 19:16-30; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-30)
Jesus, yet living under the Old Testament told him to keep the commandments. Confident in his moral virtue he replied, “these have I kept from my youth up. What lack I yet?” Jesus replied, “If thou wilt be perfect (complete) go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor… and come follow me.” But the young man went away sadly for he had great possessions.
He had built his security in material things. He had found satisfaction in his own moral virtue. He had molded self-esteem in his political power, but none of these could get him eternal life without following Jesus!
How foolish to choose material wealth over eternal life! Maybe we need to do a personal audit before we get too hard on this young man.
On what do we spend most of our time? What do we consider to be our most secure investment? What brings us the most satisfaction in life? What dominates our conversations?
Without Jesus, we would never be all we could be. Jesus brings life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). Any purpose we could assign to life would be incomplete without Jesus. Jesus completes us by providing all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). He gives us strength to do all things through Him (Phil. 4:13). He provides us with the armor that we need to defeat our ablest enemy – Satan (Ephesians 6:10-16). He reveals the faith we need to keep us from falling (Romans 1:16-17, Jude 24; 2 Peter 1:5-10; 1 John 5:4). He gives us the crown of life in return for our faithfulness (Revelation 2:10).
Without Him I could do nothing.
Without Him I’d surely fail.
Without Him I would be drifting,
Like a ship without a sail.
Without Him I would be dying,
Without Him I’d be enslaved,
Without Him I would be hopeless,
But with Jesus, thank God I am saved!
- Mylon R. LeFevre
