Matthew 5:3: "God blesses those who realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them."
Recognizing our need is the first key to a fruitful relationship with our Father. The very act of recognition elicits the need to recognize the heart. The Beatitudes demonstrate that the way to heavenly blessedness is opposed to the worldly path normally followed in pursuit of happiness. The world’s idea is that happiness is found in riches, merriment, abundance, leisure, and such other worldly things. The real truth is the opposite.
The Beatitudes give the character of true faith in Christ. This verse speaks of recognition of our need for Christ.
Psalm 51:17, "The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God you will not despise." Recognizing the need for brokenness is the key to having a vital and fruitful relationship with God. Isaiah 1:12-20, "Why do you keep parading through My courts with your worthless sacrifices? The incense you bring Me is a stench in My nostrils! Your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath day, and your special days for fasting-- even your most pious meetings-- are all sinful and false. I want nothing more to do with them. I hate all your festivals and sacrifices. I cannot stand the sight of them! From now on, when you lift up your hands in prayer, I will refuse to look. Even though you offer many prayers, I will not listen. For your hands are covered with the blood of your innocent victims. Wash yourselves and be clean! Let Me no longer see your evil deeds. Give up your wicked ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Fight for the rights of widows." "Come now, let us argue this out," says the Lord. "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool. If you will only obey Me and let Me help you, then you will have plenty to eat. But if you keep turning away and refusing to listen, you will be destroyed by your enemies. I, the LORD, have spoken!" These verses give us an understanding of the Way of Life in which He wants us to live. This life isn’t found in parading around saying "Oh, look at me." No, it is found in giving up everything, and following Him who gave up everything for us.
This verse also speaks of all the times that we have only given lip service to the truth of God’s gift to us in Christ. Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith who loved me and gave Himself for me." This verse speaks of the complete surrender of the will to the Lord. As I have already said, in order to have a fruitful relationship with God, we must recognize our need for Christ. When we surrender our life to the Lord, a few things happen. The things that we once hold dear are no longer dear to us, because our emotions are crucified, they are no longer our own; no, they have been given over to Christ.
When we hold onto our emotions we are really saying, "No, God, you cannot enter that area of my life." When we do that we are all but saying no to the One who died for our sin, and saying "Yes, Satan, you can have authority over that area of my life."
It is when we allow though the Spirit of God to crucify and shed His light on our lives that we come to a true understanding of what our needs really are. Our need is to be crucified completely to Christ. After all, Christ became Man in part so that we could inherit the Kingdom of Light instead of the Kingdom of Darkness. If we don’t allow the Light to shine in our lives then we cannot say we have the Light in our lives. We really have the darkness that has captured so many, and even those who say they are really in the Light are really in the Darkness. When we recognize our needs, and as we come to an understanding deep within our wills that, yes, Jesus is the answer to the darkness of our souls. When this happens, we are then able to let the Light of Christ radiate in each area of our life. The result is a complete crucifixion of the flesh, and an embrace of the Way of Life that God has given us through the Blood of Jesus.
The Lord isn’t just interested in our embracing Him, so that the life that He has chosen to give us would be ours. The Lord wants us to recognize our need as well, so that we will walk in the Spirit, and make no satisfaction for the flesh.
As we recognize our need for Jesus, we begin to understand that it is not in our own wisdom that we can come to know the truth. It is in God’s Wisdom that we come to understand who Jesus is. After all, the Word of God is Christ, and it is through His sacrifice on the Cross that He has chosen to give us eternal life. The Way of Life can only be found through the Cross. The Cross shows our need, and if we are willing it, allows us to recognize our need for a Savior.
When this recognition happens in our hearts, we come to an understanding deep within our soul that yes, our need is for Christ. When this happens, we understand, and are able to share out of our own life experiences what the Lord is doing in our lives. This enables us to be attuned to the work of God in our lives, and what He is teaching us. John 15:26, "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me." It is the Spirit of Truth that we need to help us, to teach us all things.
When we recognize our need for Jesus, the Lord gives us understanding and insight into the things that we are going through. This helps us to recognize our needs. The Way of Life that God has called us to live isn’t easy. It is hard, but He wants us to embrace the Cross. The Cross is rough, but to those who embrace it, to those Jesus calls His Friends, Christ promises that His yoke is easy. John 15:14-16, "You are My friends if you obey Me. I no longer call you servants, because a master doesn’t confide in his servants. Now you are My friends, since I have told you everything the Father told Me. You didn’t choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using My name." This verse speaks of what God wants us to do, and how to fulfil our needs.
Our need is to have the Lord direct our paths, so that they will not be of ourselves, but that they would be of God. Psalm 37:5, "Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust Him, and He will help you." When we commit everything to the Lord we are recognizing the need for God, and in turn receiving the blessing of God. This happens as result of the recognition of our needs. It is so important that we understand how needy we are. Without Christ, we are all destined to one place, Hell. Without Christ coming in the flesh and embracing our humanity, we would never be able to recognize exactly how needy we all really are. It is through the life of Christ that we can recognize and live out the Way of Life that God has revealed to us in the life of Christ.
The Way of Life is through the Cross. Through the rough and splintered Cross we must go if we are truly wanting to recognize the depravity of our fallen nature. That is the only way we will truly understand, and be able to help out those who are hurting. When we truly understand this deeply in our hearts, we are able to help others who are hurting because the Holy Spirit has lead us to a place of complete surrender on Him. When this happens we are completely available to God and, as Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am a sinful man."
God wants to take us to that place of complete dependence on Him, so that we can in turn recognize others need for Jesus as well. When this happens, the anointing power of the Holy Spirit fills us, and equips us to serve God. The Holy Spirit gives us gifts so that we are able to share Himself with others. The key to that is LOVE. Loving each other as Christ commanded us to do.
When we do this we are recognizing the needs of others, and God meets our needs as we recognize other’s needs. He fills us with the Spirit of God as we follow Him, and embrace the roughened Cross that He died on, for us, so that we can have this blessed hope in Him. Recognition comes as the things of the flesh fade, and the things of God appear ever more brightly.
