Is Christ Enough?

by Rev Greg Obong-Oshotse 6 November 2020

Text: Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”

“We got up one summer’s morning, with all the world before us as usual,” writes John Charles Ryle (1816-1900) in his autobiography, “and went to bed that same evening completely and entirely ruined.” That day his father’s two banks in Manchester and Macclesfield collapsed and “every single acre and penny my father possessed had to be given up to meet the demands of the creditors.” It was a devastating blow for the family. John was 25, and hoping to become a Member of Parliament. That ambition was crushed that day. However, he had become a Christian a few years earlier, and his life’s path would now take him into the ministry, where God had destined him for an illustrious service, even becoming the first Bishop of Liverpool.

God had told Habakkuk He would judge His own people by the hands of an ungodly nation. How could God do that, he wonders? When he gets over the puzzle, he considers the dreary prospect and insists God must be honoured and praised nevertheless, for He is “the God of my salvation,” and brings his little book to a close with a psalm.Everything else may be taken. It is enough that God will remain with him. He will still have the best: salvation. If everything was stripped away, and all was lost, would Christ be enough?

Prayer Dear Father may nothing here ever steal from us the joy of our salvation in Christ’s name, Amen.