What Are Your Needs?

How’s life going for you these days?  Do you have enough food? Clothes?  Do you feel well?  Are you struggling to make ends meet?  There are necessities in life we all have worried about at one point in time or another in our life, but Jesus makes it clear that His followers ought not worry about such things:

For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. (Matthew 6:25a)

Why?  It’s because we don’t really “need” those things.  Jesus and others fasted from food for months and lived.  (Matthew 4)  God told Isaiah to go naked for 3 years as a sign. (Isaiah 20:2-6)  Paul had to live with a thorn in the flesh rather than be healed/delivered from it. (1 Corinthians 12:7)  And when Jesus needed money, He just got it out of a fish’s mouth.  (Matthew 17:27)

The point is that none of these are necessities of life.  Jesus goes on to say, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25b)

There is only one thing in this life that we can’t live without, and His name is Jesus.  When you feel like you're lacking the necessities in life, don’t ask for food, clothes, finances, or even healing; ask for more of Jesus.  Seek His face first in all things.  He is the answer to all these other issues anyway.

Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:33-34)

Be a Winner! Play in the Real World!

Medical studies show that having a 4 oz glass of red wine everyday can help prevent cardiovascular disease and prevent certain tumors from forming.  Yet, someone who drinks a bottle of wine a day can destroy their physical health, not to mention damage relationships with family, friends, and coworkers sometimes beyond repair. We would say, "they have a problem, an addiction."

But chemical dependencies are far from the only addictions out there.  Some people are addicted to gambling, some are addicted to social networking, some are addicted to shopping, some are addicted to sports (playing and watching), and some are addicted to video games. 

None of these things in moderation are necessarily bad, some like red wine actually have real benefits, but we don’t live in a moderate culture anymore.   Everything is excess. Do you want to know if you’re addicted to something? Look at your daily routine and give up that thing you do/think about most.

Whatever the addiction, the root is always the same.  Escape.  There is a hole in the addict’s life, dug deep by hurts, failures, greed, and pride.  And the addiction offers a distraction from the emptiness. 

People drink or do drugs because they want to feel differently about their life.  People gamble because they can’t seem to make enough to get ahead. They use social networks to fill the lack of real life connections.  They shop because they can’t seem to find that one thing that will make them better than the neighbors.  They live vicariously through sports stars because they don’t have the physical prowess they wish they did.  They play video games because of the success they experience there that they don’t have in real life.

And that’s the sad part about addiction.  The temporary elation the addict experiences isn’t real.  It isn’t lasting. 

There is more to real life than the pursuit of pleasure.

Real life is actually all about the pursuit of God.  He is the only pursuit worthy of excess. He is the only pursuit that will fill the holes in our soul.   And He is the only pursuit that will bring life.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul, and to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, making no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. (1 Peter 2:11/Romans 13:14)