ChristMyLife.org - What Do You Need?

What do you need? What do you think you need? For the purpose of this article, we will consider wants to be things you perceive as needs. We generally say wants are things you don't really need, but I think wants are an expression of a deeper need. We might be bored with life, for example, so we long for situations which offer variety, action or change. By satisfying our wants, temporarily at least, we are able to mask the deeper need. Wants are an expression or an outward manifestation of needs of some type. In the case where we are bored with life, what we really need is significance and purpose in our lives.

What do you perceive needs to happen in your life in the next hour or the rest of this day? Think about your schedule for today. What events do you want to unfold? Are there people you need to meet, places you need to go, things you need to buy. Is the completion of these things your template for success for the day? What makes you feel good? What give you satisfaction? When things don't go as planned, do you find yourself frustrated? Does it seem you are not in control? Are your kids or spouse behaving as you would like? Are your friends supporting you and encouraging you as you wish they would?

What about longer term? Are you content with where you think you will be in the future? Do you dream or hope for change in your job, your spouse, your economic situation or other area of your life? What do you think would make you content? What needs to change in your life so that you could be happy?

As followers of Christ, we all know the answers to the above questions is Jesus. He is more than everything we could every want or need.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:12-13 NIV)

When we get our eyes off of Christ, we become more selfish and seek to satisfy our own wants. The following passage speaks of selfishness run rampant, but we can harm our earthly relationships in more subtle ways when we seek to please ourselves at the expense of others

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (James 4:1-4 NIV)

To be content in Christ does not mean we have to suppress our wants and desires and pretend we are happy. As we grow to know Him more and more, there is nothing on this earth which can even hold our interest compare to Him. How could we be enamored by the creation when we can know and love the Creator. How can what has been made even remotely compare to He who made it?

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philippians 3:7-9 NIV)

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:34-36 NIV)

What could be better than following our Savior and Creator? What possible value can there be in seeking after anything else? Our sinful nature loudly proclaims that the ways of this world are the ways we should follow. Christ beckons for us to follow Him and Him alone. He is more than everything we need. He alone satisfies completely. Don't let yourself be distracted by anything or anyone else.

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:13-14 NIV)

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