This post is the fifth in a series titled “Transformation Workbook“.
In the first section of this series we discussed God’s purpose for the believer which is to glorify Him. We glorify God as He transforms us into the image of His Son and we express His character through our souls in our daily lives.
In the second section we are discussing our relationship with God. In the first post of this section we talked about the way God designed or souls to be compatible with Him. This article will explain how God completes and fulfills our human needs and the next article will discuss the system He created for He and us to communicate with one another.
Completing the Human Soul
The world tells us that we should admire other human beings that use their human ability to be strong. Darwinism, the dominant idea of our day, tells us that “the strong survive” and “the survival of the fittest”. Many of our popular movies idealize those who are callous, have no compassion and have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. It is no wonder that the world celebrates human strength since it is all the world has on which to depend. The world admires those who use their own abilities to meet their own needs or even better, those who successfully pretend that they have no needs. The bible tells us another story.
God did not make us to be strong. He made us to be weak and needy. The human soul is incredibly fragile and needy. In fact, in the real world, which is the spiritual world, we are totally helpless. Helpless to save ourselves, make ourselves spiritual or meet the God given needs He placed within us. We are needy by design. God made our souls in such a way that we need Him in order for us to be complete and fulfilled. His great mercy made us so that we would need Him so that perhaps we might seek Him having exhausted every other means of happiness. The bible teaches that if we will enter into an intimate relationship with God, then our hearts will find rest and fulfillment.
We are confused though. Instead of needing God, we think we need people. Born without God and having only people with whom we can relate, we conclude that our needs are to be fulfilled through people. All of our relational strategies are built around the goal of inducing people to like, admire and accept us. We believe that if we can maximize our human assets to cause other people to praise us then our souls will be complete. This is why we are so fearful of rejection, conflict and loss of human support. If you have raised children, you have seen the power of peer pressure, which is the raw evidence of our false dependence on people. We are also confused about the role of human ability. Most churches teach us to use our human abilities to produce Christian works as the way to please God. We learn what God considers right and wrong and we try to comply with His standards through human will. We focus on producing the appearance of spirituality so that other humans will give us respect and approval. We believe that this approval will fulfill our souls and even believe that human approval is the same as God’s approval. We must come to understand that in our humanity we are bankrupt, helpless and totally dependent on God for our happiness.
God made the human soul with needs. Those needs are evident in all of us from our birth. As we reach adult status we learn to hide our neediness with the appearance of strength. We learn how to play the game so that others will think we are strong but our neediness remains. It is this neediness that drives every pursuit of our lives.
We experience our needs as desire. Our desires are the expression of our divinely designed needs. The bible calls these needs/desires hunger and thirst. Each of us experiences deep cravings and longings for affection, acceptance, admiration and a sense of accomplishment. Our deep desires show us that we have needs that ultimately only God can complete. Our ongoing failure to find fulfillment through people leads us to find another way. this “other way” is the subject of this whole study. The complete list of human needs is beyond the scope of this article but the following represent our core divinely designed needs.
1. Unconditional love Rom 5:5 – from God, man & self. We all want to be loved as we are in spite of our flaws and failures. We all need to see and treat ourselves as God sees and treats us
2. To fully know and be know by another – 1Cor 13:12 All of us long to be able to fully share our hearts with someone who will understand us and accept us the way we are.
3. Acceptance, inclusion and belonging – family – Eph 2:19 We are herd bound. God made us to crave a position where we are accepted in a group. We all desire to belong.
4. Recognition, praise and appreciation for our contributions – Mt 25:21,23 All of us desire to be recognized and praised for our accomplishments.
5. Ability to edify and impact others – make a difference – 1Thes 5:11 God designed us to contribute to the betterment of others.
These core needs drive and motivate all human behavior. All human behavior can be traced to the desire to fulfill these core needs. Both God and the devil use man’s needs/desires to motivate us.
Peter tells us that the corruption in the world is caused by misdirected desire.
2 Peter 1:4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Paul tells us that the corruption of our old belief system is motivated by desire.
Eph 4:22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
The Holy Spirit also uses our desire system to motivate us to spiritual life.
Gal 5:17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.Phil 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will (desire) and to act according to his good purpose.
Jesus discussed God’s answer to our thirst for relationship in John 7:37-39
JOHN 7:37 ON THE LAST AND GREATEST DAY OF THE FEAST, JESUS STOOD AND SAID IN A LOUD VOICE, “IF ANYONE IS THIRSTY, LET HIM COME TO ME AND DRINK. 38 WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME, AS THE SCRIPTURE HAS SAID, RIVERS OF LIVING WATER WILL FLOW FROM HIS INNERMOST BEING 39 BY THIS HE MEANT THE SPIRIT, WHOM THOSE WHO BELIEVED IN HIM WERE LATER TO RECEIVE. UP TO THAT TIME THE SPIRIT HAD NOT BEEN GIVEN, SINCE JESUS HAD NOT YET BEEN GLORIFIED.
Jesus called out to those who were “thirsty”, meaning those who were aware of their need for God. Jesus talked about our human needs experienced as hunger and thirst in in Mt 5:6 – hunger & thirst for righteousness – desire for rightness with God; Jn 6:35 –Jesus-Bread/Life – come/Him and never hunger; believe on Him never thirst; Jn 4:6-26 – woman at the well – living water & you will never thirst again. Jesus called out to identify those who were aware of their need for God. He knew that we experience our God given needs as deep desires and longings.
He said that we feel these desires in our innermost being. The Greek word koilos means an empty place, a cavity, a hole, it is most often translated as the womb and is used for the stomach. When used for our needs/desires being misdirected toward sinful objects it is translated as our appetites (Rom 16:18; Phil 3:19). What we learn from Jesus is that God designed an empty place in the heart of mankind and from that empty place we feel deep desires. It is also in this empty place in the heart of man where we experience fulfillment when we attach our desires to God. Without God, man chooses to fill the emptiness with false objects of happiness. When we bond and attach or hearts to these false objects of pleasure, it causes us to become addicted to them.
Finally, Jesus explains that the divine answer to the needs/desires generated by the emptiness in our hearts is found in the ministry of God-Holy Spirit. The living water that fills and overflows from within the heart of the spiritual believer is the ministry of the Spirit. The divine means of meeting our human needs is a relationship with God Himself. The Holy Spirit who indwells our bodies making us the temple of God guides us into the understanding and application of all truth. It is God’s truth that sets us free from our false beliefs that lead us into misery and transforms us and gives us the same joy experienced by the Lord Jesus Himself.
God patterned the design of our souls after His own so that we would be compatible for relationship. He also designed the human soul with needs that only He can complete. As we allow Him to transform our beliefs to be like Christ we learn how to allow Him to fulfill these needs, which produces the peace and joy of God. Before we can experience the joys of intimacy with God, we have to lay aside our false belief that people can meet out divinely designed needs. While some needs are designed for people to meet (marriage), the core needs generated from the empty place within us can only be met by God.
Let me prompt your thinking about your needs with some questions:
1. What would you say is your greatest need/desire?
2. What is your most noticeable need/desire in relationships?
3. How successful have you been in your close relationships?
4. Describe your relationship with your parents
5. Did you feel loved and secure as a child?
6. Describe your parent’s relationship.
Was it close? Was there a lot of fighting? Did they divorce?
7. Do you find yourself seeking something in your relationship with your spouse that you can’t seem to ever get?
8. Would you be willing to redirect your need/desire toward God?
9. Would you be willing to admit that you are seeking something from a member of the opposite sex that you can only get from God?
10. Are you hungry for praise from people?
11. Are you terrified of rejection?
12. Do you avoid conflict at all costs?
13. Have you been married and divorced a number of times?
14. Are all of your relationships filled with conflict?
15. Are you so disillusioned with relationships that you have given up?
16. Are you truly happy?
17. Are you overly concerned with appearances?
We all begin our lives seeking what we need from people. It never works and eventually after enough conflict and failure, we give up. We may stay married for the children’s sake but our hearts are filled with despair. We lose hope in ever finding happiness with our close relationships. If this describes you, then great!!!
Now, maybe you will stop trying to squeeze from people what you can only get from God. Now perhaps you are ready to seek God in a different way. Stay tuned. I will try to help you learn a new way to meet your needs – God’s way.
View all posts in the Transformation Workbook series
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