MY REAL NEED

At first, we were endowed with noble powers and a well-balanced mind. We were perfect, mentally, physically and in harmony with God. Our thoughts were pure, our goals holy. But, through disobedience, our powers were diverted and selfishness took the place of love. Our nature became so weakened that it was (and is) impossible by our own power to resist self-gratifying temptations. I am captive to Satan, who is the master at tempting me. If God does not specially interpose, I would remain under the power of evil. The tempter's purpose is to thwart God's plan for me, and fill the earth with his society of woe and desolation. And then, to top it off, he claims that all this evil is the direct and "natural" result of God's work.

In the sinless state, we held open and direct communication with the One in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But after our sin, we could no longer find joy in holiness, and so tried to hide from God. That is exactly the condition of my unrenewed heart. I am not in harmony with God. I find no joy in comunicating with him. I would not be happy in God's presence; I'd shrink from companionship with holy beings. If I were permitted to enter heaven as I am now, I would be out of place -- unhappy. The spirit of unselfish love that reigns there would touch no answering chord in me. My thoughts, my interests, my motives, would be alien to those that actuate the sinless dwellers there. I'd be a discordant note in the melody of heaven. Heaven would seem to me a place of personal torture. I'd long to be hidden from Him who is its light, and the center of its joy. It is no arbitrary decree on God's part that excludes the wicked from heaven, I am shut out by my own unfitness for its companionship. The glory of God would be a consuming fire to me. And, I would welcome its destruction just to be hidden from the One who died to redeem me.

It is impossible for me, on my own, to escape from the pit of selfishness in which I am sunk. My heart is evil, and I cannot change it. "Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!" "Because the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Education, cuture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. They may produce an outward correctness of behavior, but they cannot change my heart; they cannot purify what springs from inside me. There must be a power working from within, a new life from above, before I can be changed from sin to holiness. That power is Jesus. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of my soul, and attract me to God, to holiness.

Jesus said, "unless a man be born again," -- unless I receive a new heart, new desires, purposes, and motives, leading to a new life -- "he cannot see the kingdom of God." The idea that it is necessary only to develop the good that exists in me by nature is a fatal deception. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.""You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again'." Of Jesus it is written, "In Him was life, and that life was the light of men." -- the only "name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

It is not enough for me to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see the benevolence, the fatherly tenderness, of His character. It is not enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love. Paul the apostle saw all this when he said, "I agree that the law is good." "The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good." But He added, in bitterness and despair, "I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin." He longed for the purity, the righteousness, which he was powerless to attain on his own, and cried out, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" This is also the cry that goes up from my burdened heart. There is but one answer, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

Many are the figures by which the Spirit of God has sought to illustrate this truth, and make it plain. For instance, when, after his sin in deceiveing Esau, Jacob fled from his father's home, he was weighed down with a sense of guilt. He was lonely and outcast, separated from all that had made life dear. The one thought that above all others pressed him down, was the fear that his sin had cut him off from God, that he was forsaken of Heaven. In sadness he lay down to rest on the bare earth, around him only the lonely hills, and above, the heavens bright with stars. As he slept, a strange light broke upon his vision; from the plain on which he lay, a vast shadowy stairs seemed to lead upward to the very gates of heaven, and upon them angels of God were passing up and down; while from the glory above, the divine voice was heard in a message of comfort and hope. Thus was made known to Jacob that which met the need and longing of his soul -- a Saviour. With joy and gratitude he saw revealed a way by which he, a sinner, could be restored to communtion with God. The mystic ladder of his dream represented Jesus, the only medium of communication between God and myself.

This is the same figure to which Christ referred in His converstaion with Nathanael, when He said, "You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." In apostasy, I am alienated from God; I am cut off from heaven. Across the gulf that lays between, there is no and can be no communion. But through Christ, I am again linked with heaven. With His own merits, Christ has bridged the gulf made by sin, so that ministering angels can hold communtion with me. Christ connects me, in my weakness and helplessness, with the Source of infinite power.

In vain are my dreams of progress, in vain all my efforts for the uplifting of humanity, if I neglect the one Source of hope and help for the fallen race. "Every good and perfect gift" is from God. I can have no true excellence of character separate from Him. And the only way to God is Christ. He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no one comes to the Father except through Me."

The heart of God yearns over me with a love stonger than death. In giving up His Son, He has poured out to me all heaven in one gift. Jesus' life and death and intercession, the ministry of angels, the pleading of the Spirit, the Father working above and through all, the unceasing interest of heavenly beings -- all are enlisted in behalf of my redemption.

Oh, let me contemplate the amazing sacrifice that has been made for me! Let me try to appreciate the labor and energy that Heaven is expending to reclaim me, and bring me back to the Father's house. Motives stronger, and agencies more powerful, could never be brought into operation: the exceeding rewards for right-doing, the enjoyment of heaven, the society of the angels, the communion and love of God and His Son, the elevation and extension of all my powers throughout eternal ages, are these not mighty incentives and encouragements to urge me to give the heart's loving service to my Creator and Redeemer?

And, on the other hand, the judgments of God pronounced against sin, the inevitable retribution, the degradation of our character, and the final destruction, are presented in God's word to warn me against the service of Satan.

How shall I regard the mercy of God? What more could He do for me? Let me place myself in right relation to Him who has loved me with amazing love. Let me avail myself of the means provided for me that I may be transformed into His likeness, and be restored to fellowship with the ministering angels, to harmony and communion with the Father and the Son.

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