Desperation

Every human shares basic needs. The need for food and the need for water top that list.

An average male can survive between two and three weeks without food.

Take a moment. Look at this picture.

You would have to search far and wide to find the person who is so heartless that they can stare at that picture for five seconds and not be moved greatly.

That picture--THAT is what hunger looks like. It is an image that stirs our soul in a most unsettling way and tugs mightily on our heart.

That child is in desperate need of food. No one can overlook that desperation, let alone ignore it.

We see that wide-eyed child, we see his skin tight against his bones, and we know that there is something really, really wrong. The absolute need that a starving human has for food SCREAMS at us! It cannot be missed! And it does not sit well with us.

We want to help—we are MOVED to help.

When Christians look at a person who does not know God, do we see them in the same way? Do we see a really deep need?

If in this universe, one thing exists that every man/woman/child needs more than food, it is God. The need at the core of every person’s being for God eclipses just a physical need—it encompasses EVERY area of need from emotional to spiritual to physical to mental.

Yet, will we recognize this need for God as we do when we see a hungry child?

Our eyes tell us that the child in that picture is CLEARLY in need of food. We know he needs food. HE knows he needs food. If someone has never heard the gospel…how can they know that they need Him?

Say you take away a person’s ability to realize that they are thirsty, but not their need for water. In their eyes, they have no need to quench thirst—because they have none. There is no problem in their minds because without the recognition of thirst, they do not understand their need for water to live. But without it, they will surely die.

In the same way, if someone does not realize that they have a desperate need for God, then they will not seek to fill that need. The need remains—and it remains unfulfilled. Just as the above example illustrates, if there is no problem in their mind, there will be no reason to seek after God.

Without recognizing a problem, there will be no desire for a solution. In other words, if we see no problem, we see no need for Christ.

If they are to see there is a problem, they have to HEAR the gospel of God’s great love. So tell them.

We KNOW there is a problem and we KNOW there is a need for Christ. So when we see someone unaware or in denial of their need for Christ, it should be our conviction that we seek to bring them to know the God who created them and wants to have a relationship with each and every one of them.

Conviction should not be taken lightly—especially when it comes to people’s salvation. If we are to seek, we are to seek HARD after them. There has to be a sense of urgency in sharing the gospel with everyone and beyond that, fighting for them if they don’t want to fight to know Christ—or they just do not know. We MUST do that. We must battling in prayer, and really seek them out as we seek God’s face.

If people are truly passionate about something, it shows, and it cannot be contained. If a person has the passion to fight world hunger, they will not do so half-heartedly—they will go ALL OUT. When you carry deeply-rooted passion, it is constantly on your mind and always driving you.

If we are truly passionate at the deepest level about our love for Christ because He so loved us that He died for us, it will FILL our lives. It will fill us so much that everyone around us will know.
 
We will be like pieces of polished silver in a pile of pebbles. We will be like the chirping of the –early-morning birds that pierces the silence and signals the arrival of a new day.

It will be OBVIOUS if we are truly passionate about Christ. And if we are passionate about Christ, then we are passionate about His cause—we are passionate about the salvation of souls.

So are we so deeply touched knowing that there are those who need the gospel—and often do not know that is what they need—all around us? Are we moved in such a way that we will do whatever is in our power to be a shining light in the world for Christ?

Are we moved as strongly as we are when faced with the image of a hungry child?

We should be. We really, truly should be. We should be fighting for Christ in our lives and for all our friends—and fighting HARD.

There is a prime example of this in Mark 2.

“Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus SEEING THEIR FAITH said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:4-5).

Jesus healed the man of his paralysis—not because of the faith that he had, but because of the faith of his friends! His friends brought Him to Christ, and He was HEALED because of the THEIR faith!

This is what we need to do.

We have to possess such pure, dedicated faith like those men who carried that man all the way to Jesus at any cost. They went to the length of digging through that roof to get to Jesus! They went to such an extreme to get that man to Jesus. This is passion and this is fighting for your friends.

Do we go to those extremes to get our friends to Christ? Is our faith so great that we go to any level to get our friends to the place where they are face-to-face with Jesus?

That is what we need to do. That is what we are called—even commanded—to do.

We have that salvation and love of Christ that is too good to keep to ourselves. Fight for those around you.
When we pray and we preach and we fight, we can really be effective for His kingdom on this earth.

The world is desperately hungry. We know it. Jesus is the answer. We know it.

So take them to the cross. Take them to where God so loved them that He gave His only son to save them. Take them to where all things are made new and life is made complete.

Give them the bread of life. Give them Jesus.

“I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” –John 6:35