There was a professional season of my career when I already knew. I could see the culture shifting around me, watch it happening to people I cared about, feel the weight of it settling into a work community I loved so dearly. And I kept waiting.
Maybe this leader will finally see it. Maybe next year will be different. Maybe if I just give it one more season.
Then a colleague exploded on me. In front of others. And it was glossed over. Like it hadn’t really happened. Like I hadn’t really been there. And that was it.
The thing I had been hoping would not have to be the thing that confirmed it, confirmed it. Not because of what he did. Because of what the glossing over said.
I had been adding new layers and conditions to something that had already been decided. I was just the last one to accept it. What I felt surprised me. Grief and relief, arriving at the exact same time.
Paul understood that feeling better than I did.
In Colossians 1:28, the Apostle Paul lays out the clearest passion and purpose of his ministry. He writes: “We preach Christ. And warn others to not add to this Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less.”
Paul begins by grounding his ministry’s mission in common sense. And there is a reason he had to say it. The Colossian believers were being pulled toward false teachers who trafficked in the complicated. Splashy, sophisticated religious messages. Secret codes. Spiritual formulas. Religious rituals designed to make the in-group feel indispensable and everyone else feel dependent like they were missing something.
Paul would have none of it.
The Good News of Jesus Christ is not a locked room. There is no secret code. No formula. No spiritual calisthenics required. No hoops to jump through, no levels to unlock, no inner circle holding the real answers.
Spiritual Maturity, Paul says, is not complexity or fancy self-help content. Maturity is basic. It is arriving at the simplest, truest thing and staying there.
And the simplest, truest thing is Jesus Christ. Him alone. Nothing more and nothing less.
As basic as that sounds, our belief in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior is everything we need. Through Him and His Spirit, we discover the deepest wisdom and meaning of God. Not at the end of a long checklist. Not after we have done enough or learned enough or become enough. Jesus Christ is our deliverer, our redeemer, our joy, our hope, and our strength.
Just Jesus. Period! He’s enough.
This week, let’s return to that. Jesus Christ is all I need.
Now that’s BombDiggity.