Adequate Living
Emptying the table of self to be filled with the sufficiency of Christ.
Based on “Immeasurably More” – A Daily Devotion for March 21st
Photo on Unsplash
In today’s devotional, we’re invited to do something both radical and liberating: take an honest inventory of everything we consider assets—our education, personality, money, skills, reputation—and then view them as liabilities when compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. Paul didn’t simply renounce his old life in theory; he considered every fleshly confidence trash in light of the treasure of Jesus living in him. He wasn’t begrudging in this loss—he was joyful, because what he gained in return was true adequacy. The deeper point is this: many of us have Christ in us, but haven’t yet “gained” Him experientially because we are still clinging to what we used to draw life and value from. Only when we drop the rod—our means of self-support—can Christ become our full source. The life we once managed from the outside, He now lives through us from within. But we can’t walk in both. One must be counted loss to enjoy the other as gain.
Journal Entry in the Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
You don’t have to fear letting go of what you once relied on—I AM your adequacy. Those old sources you thought kept you afloat were never meant to carry the weight of your identity. They were leaky vessels, patched together by human effort. I AM the fountain of Living Water that never runs dry.
Let Me show you again the surpassing worth of knowing Me—not knowing about Me, but sharing union with Me. Your education, your credentials, your likability, your experience—these were never meant to be your source. When you lay them down as Moses did his staff, I redeem them, if I choose to, for Kingdom use. But I want you free of them as your foundation.
When you look at what you’ve achieved or what you fear losing, remember: those things have no power to produce real life. That’s why you’ve felt moments of emptiness, even with Me in you—because you were drawing from a dry cistern, while I was within you offering rivers of living water. Let them go. Count them loss, not bitterly but joyfully. Christ in you is more than enough. Let Me live freely through you, without competition. Your adequacy is not improved by clinging to the old—it is revealed when you rest in Me alone.
(Philippians 3:7-8, Galatians 2:20, Jeremiah 2:13, Exodus 4:2-4, 2 Corinthians 3:5-6)
Prayer of Trust
Lord Jesus, thank You that I don’t need to improve myself, prop myself up, or defend my worth. You are my life now, and I count all else as loss—not with reluctance, but with joy, because I see what I have in You. I trust You to live Your fully adequate life through me in this moment. You alone are my value, my sufficiency, my source. May all that once defined me now point only to You.