Want Vs. Need

I look around me at everything in piles; the huge amount of "stuff" I have collected over my lifetime. Some things make me smile while others cause a sigh to escape my lips. "Why do I feel the need to have so much?" I ask myself. Often I hear the excuses rolling through my head, "well God says He will provide everything I need, so this must all be from Him." Then another voice comes in and says, "why do you feel the need to "have" when there are so many you could bless by simply "giving"?"

I have been brought into a world where giving has gone out of style as fast as big hair from the 80's. The word "need" has been twisted so much that nobody really knows what it means anymore.

This generation of kids (all the way up to people in their 20's) are a generation who are being shown the wrong way to live. They are given the example of parents who fight more than they love, they are shown if things get bad enough then divorce is perfectly acceptable and that God is okay with it, they are shown no self control because their parents go and do what they want with money they don't have, college is mainly a place to go have a cool experience and the kids learn nothing, they are given what they want with no expectation of hard work. When are we going to see that we are ruining a generation that could turn the world around? We have more knowledge and more resources to do MORE for Christ, yet we take it and use it for personal gain. We do not give freely of our love, money, time or resources unless we are given something in return.

What would that look like if Jesus tried it on us? We would be destined for HELL, because we can give NOTHING that He needs. He has everything He needs.
The truth is, He isn't even slightly similar to us because He CHOSE to come and die for us. He CHOSE to be beaten. He CHOSE to be mocked. He CHOSE to die through the most painful death. He CHOSE to let the tree live and grow that He would hang on one day. He had friends turn on Him, teachers and "preachers" accuse Him falsely; He had people use His name as an expression for filth and disgust. If it were you and I, I guarantee we would say "forget it! These people deserve what's coming to them, I won't take another minute of this humiliation!"

But that's the difference between you and I and God, isn't it? He didn't think about Himself. Not for one second. His life was lived and given up for YOU.

Would you like to know what the true meaning to the word "need" is?

* A Savior for our hateful, wicked sins against Jesus. (We NEED a Savior.)

These are what we think of as needs:

I NEED a new car.
I NEED more time.
I NEED more toys.
I NEED more money.
I NEED more clothes.
I NEED a better phone.
I NEED a bigger house.

Honestly, we do not need any of these things.

We do not NEED a new car.
We do not NEED more time.
We do not NEED more toys.
We do not NEED more money.
We do not NEED more clothes.
We do not NEED a better phone.
We do not NEED a bigger house.

Amazingly enough, people live every day for a full lifetime without all of these things. We do what we want. It's that simple.
-We buy more things because we want to
-We don't make time for important things because we don't want to
"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

God has given us the blessing (and hardship) of choosing what we do with the time we have on this earth. YOU are the one who decides what your life will look like. Does it look more like YOU, or HIM?