FELT NEEDS
We should be
careful about saying, “Jesus meets all our needs.” At first, this has a plausible biblical ring
to it. Christ is a friend; God is
a loving Father; Christians do experience a sense of meaningfulness and
confidence in knowing God’s love. It
makes Christ the answer to our problems.
Yet if our use of the term “needs” is ambiguous, and its range of
meaning extends all the way to selfish desires, then there will be some
situations where we should say that Jesus does not intend to meet our needs,
but that he intends to change our needs.
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 89. Used by Permission.
Scripture
questions the whole purpose of psychological needs. It talks about denying self rather than
feeling better about ourselves. It talks
about pride, not a need for higher self-esteem.
Also, it is faulty logic to draw a connection between God’s commands and
our ‘need” to receive what is commanded.
If you applied that logic to the command to “consider others better than
yourselves” (Phil. 2:3), you would reach a conclusion that is clearly
wrong. You would conclude that since
others are commanded to do this, you have a God-given need to be more important
than other people!
Edward T. Welch
When People are Big and God is Small, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 147-148. Used by Permission.
It is
fashionable to follow the view of some psychologists that the self is a bundle
of needs and that personal growth is the business of progressively meeting
these needs. Many Christians go along with such beliefs… One mark of the almost
total success of this new morality is that the Christian church, traditionally
keen on mortifying the desires of the flesh, on crucifying the needs of the
self in pursuit of Christ’s likeness, has eagerly adopted the language of needs
for itself. We now hear that Jesus will meet your
every need, as though He were some kind of Divine psychiatrist or Divine
detergent and as though God were simply to serve us.
Tony Walter
Taken
from Need: The New Religion by Tony Walker, 1985, InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship/USA. Used with permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400,
Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com preface, p. 5.
The most
basic truths of our faith have fallen victim to [pragmatic], self-centered
theology. Many modern-day evangelists have reduced the gospel message to little
more than a formula by which people can live a happy and more fulfilling life.
Sin is now defined by how it affects man, not how it dishonors God. Salvation
is often presented as a means of receiving what Christ offers without obeying
what He commands. The focus has shifted from God’s glory to man’s benefit. The
gospel of persevering faith has given way to a kind of religious hedonism.
Jesus, contemporary theology implies, is your ticket to avoiding all of life’s
pains and experiencing all of life’s pleasures.
John MacArthur
Religious
Hedonism in Our Sufficiency in Christ, 1991, Crossway Books, a division of Good
News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org.
p. 154-155.
Felt need are frequently taken as self-evident
necessities to be acquired, not as deceptive slave-masters. Our culture of need
reinforces the flesh’s instincts and habits. In most cases, a person’s felt
needs are slang for idolatrous demands for love, understanding, a sense of being in control, affirmation, and achievement.
David Powlison
Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers,
2003, p. 134.
This use of feeling is also fuzzy and problematic. It
loads implicit authority into our impulses, desires, intentions, choices,
expectations, and fears. Far from being givens to
obey, these are meant to be examined biblically. The words “I feel like” often
obscure our responsibility for our desires. People act as if their “feel likes”
were authoritative impulses! Deceptive desires determine choices.
David Powlison
Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers,
2003, p. 214.
The Bible teaches us that our “feel likes” are frequently
desires of the flesh. Most of our “felt needs” are idolatrous desires. They are
meant to be killed by the Spirit, not indulged. Such is the way of life,
freedom, wisdom, and joy in Christ.
David Powlison
Seeing With New Eyes, P&R Publishers, 2003,
p. 214.