"God Only"

It is at once the most wonderful and the most excruciating truth of our existence.

"I am thy God"

(Isaiah 41:10).

God only is the life, joy, peace, contentment, and fulfillment of our hearts. There is no more blessed reality to ponder because the One for whom our hearts were made is perfectly willing and able to fill us with the abundance of His glorious Person. Such truth rings through the ages from mountaintops and valleys, palaces and prisons, cradles and graves, and every venue of human experience. The Lord Jesus Christ is the joy of our joys, the joy in our sorrows, and He offers His peace in any venue, circumstance, situation, or condition. He is the Life of our lives, and having Him, we have all we will ever need to be fulfilled whenever, wherever, and whatever.

Such truth, however, is also the most difficult reality that confronts our hearts and minds. We were conceived in the sin that tells us to look elsewhere for life and fulfillment. Adam's offspring are born gasping for air, and also grasping for things, possessions, people, conditions, and circumstances. "If only I had this or that, him or her, this opportunity, or that freedom, I could be content!" Such is the sad delusion of our flesh, and even the most devoted believer must confront the frequent temptation to believe that many are our needs, and many our supplies. Our humanity lusts for something other than God to be the peace and joy of our hearts, and does not quietly surrender its frantic gasping and grasping for the wind.

"My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus"

(Philippians 4:19).

Certainly our Heavenly Father ministers His fulfillment through countless vehicles and means. People, things, possessions, venues, circumstances, and conditions all serve as the vessels of His abundant supply. We are to give thanks for them all, and gratefully appreciate them. However, the container is not the Content, and it cannot be. All our need is supplied "by Christ Jesus," and while the Apostle Paul's promise to the Philippians concerned physical provision, it originates in the overall teaching of Scripture that our Lord is the heart and essence of all provision (including spiritual, mental, emotional, and relational).

We must make it a central tenet of our faith that if we lost everything in our lives, but God remained with and within us, we would have in reality lost nothing. He is our fulfillment, and the true joy of every joy. Again, there is no greater balm to the believing heart, but no greater challenge to our earthly humanity. "The flesh lusteth against the spirit" wrote the Apostle Paul to the Galatians, and presently we must expect much opposition within our earthly sensibilities to the glory of "God Only" (Galatians 5:17). In our spirits, however, the Holy Spirit is continually working to reveal the singular fulfillment of the Christ for whom our hearts were made. Many opportunities will call us to affirm the blessed truth, and prepare us for the glorious eternity when we will sing with every fiber of our glorified and Christ-saturated being, "This God is our God forever and ever!" (Psalm 48:14).

"He is thy life"

(Deuteronomy 30:20)