Our Deepest Need
Hello Victors!
If you’re reading this, that is indeed what you are because here at The Victory Collective, we believe that we are more than conquerors in Christ (Romans 8:37).
In last week’s blog post, I mentioned that I would include more of my recovery story in this week’s release. I am going to do that, but in order to get there, I need you to understand something. Have you ever heard of someone being referred to as high maintenance? I actually think of my dog Jack as high maintenance, but come to think of it, he’s just spoiled.
We don’t like to be that person, or rather, we don’t want to have to deal with that person. People who are high maintenance can be a burden or cause inconveniences to pop up in our lives. There’s another kind of person we have little patience for, and spoiler alert, this was me. My story begins with me being not high maintenance, but something similar – needy. In fact, believe it or not, we’re all needy. A needy person is a searching person, and a searching person is a desperate person, and a desperate person, sometimes, is not a logical or spiritually clear-minded person in their decision making. That was me.
Here’s the good thing, God is comfortable with us being needy. Whenever I read about the Israelites as they were in the desert for 40 years, I would certainly describe them as not just needy but also high maintenance. But that didn’t keep God from using a cloud to guide them by day and a pillar of fire to guide them by night. So if you ever think that God can’t handle your life or circumstances or sin issues, I beg you to rethink that statement.
While I do believe God sees and wants to meet our needs, I didn’t believe that when I started to dabble with sin. When I decided I wanted to be the one to meet my own needs, that is when things started to go downhill for me. I want to pause and remind you that sin is never worth it. And when we are needy and searching and desperate, we can become emotional, which can cloud our judgment and decision making.
My battle with pornography began because I was needy and got sucked into things that clouded my decision making and led to a ditch of guilt and sin. I quickly learned as you feed a desire, it can become an addiction. The issue escalated when I didn’t want to go to God with my addiction and admit my wrong. To put it plainly, I didn’t want to give him my sin. The day I was caught in my sin was the best day of my life. But that’s next week’s post about conviction – Be watching out for that!
I have learned that God wants our needy heart. He actually implores us in Matthew 11:28 to Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But before we can come to him, we have to admit that we need help. The word labor here is the Greek word kopiao which means to work, to give effort; to become tired, or to grow weary. That verse seemed like it was written for me. I was heavily laden with my burden of guilt. I was tired and weary from trying to help myself out of my sin. I needed help.
And my friend, you need His help also. I can tell you I tried to just resist temptation and be stronger, but that only goes so far because we are weak in and of ourselves.
Until you and I come to grips that we are in fact needy and need something bigger than ourselves, our fight with sin will seem impossible.
We are all works in progress, and no one has mastered following Jesus. But maybe it’s not about mastering anything. Maybe it’s just about being humble as Jesus was, following after Him, learning to go to Him as you would your Father, and committing all the areas of your life – the good, the bad and ugly – to Him as He leads you and helps you day by day. We need to learn to come to Him with our mess.
Every week I’m going to leave you with a gold nugget of truth, which is just a sentence to remember that you can keep in your pocket and remind yourself of it when you feel yourself getting discouraged, tempted, or needing a pick-me-up. Here it is:
There is no sin God can’t forgive. He is our deepest need.
The idea behind my deepest need came from this song by City Alight called There is One Gospel. I encourage you to listen to it this week with your gold nugget in mind.
Every story begins somewhere, and mine started because I tried to sin and win. Those two things don’t equal victory. My deepest need is Jesus, and He is who I’m going to now. Come with me.