Was Jesus Christ self-sufficient?

 

Of all the people who ever lived, Jesus of Nazareth had the most right to claim self-sufficiency.  He didn’t have to need anyone or anything.  The Son of Man, the very Word of God made flesh, had life within Himself.  The Apostle John declared, “In him was life,” (John 1:4). 

Yet we find Jesus saying and living out just the opposite of self-sufficiency.  He was unafraid to need.  He acknowledged without apology that He depended utterly on the Father for everything—from His actions to His very words.  The times He spent in private prayer with His Father were not dutiful but life-sustaining.  Surely He is appalled at our stubborn refusal to desperately need the Father.  Self-sufficiency is not merely an affront to God, but utter foolishness, the equivalent of deliberately choosing death over life. 

Jesus also put Himself in a place where, as a man, He needed others as well.  He needed His mother, Mary, to care for His physical needs as an infant and child.  He accepted the ministry (financial and physical) of the women who followed Him and His disciples.  He was unembarrassed to need the companionship of friends, particularly His disciples, creating opportunities to be with them and asking them to pray for Him, especially as He faced His greatest agony in Gethsemane.  He risked loving a man He knew would betray Him, and He refused to isolate Himself from even the most critical of His questioners.  Confident that His Father would never let Him down, Jesus gladly leaned His full weight on the Father’s sufficiency, not His own. 

Found in From Bondage to Bonding: Escaping Codependency / Embracing Biblical Love pp 59-60