What is your greatest need?

There are many ways to answer that question. For the starving infant it’s food. For the desert wanderer it’s water. For the man who has ruined his lungs by smoking it’s oxygen. For the woman caught in a blizzard it’s warmth and shelter.

But what is your greatest need?

If those life sustaining basics are readily available, what do we need beyond that?  I would say that our greatest need is love. We can have all the basics in abundance, food, shelter, clothing, and good health, but without love we lack meaning and purpose in life.

Paul, the apostle, says it best. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).   

Photo by Donald Adam

If I do not have love, I am nothing.

That statement says it all. Life only has meaning—it takes on meaning—when it is filled with love. Without love your life means zero. Nothing. Zilch. Just a big fat zero.

If I’m not loved and I have no love to give, I may as well end it all. My life has no meaning or purpose. Without love I am nothing.

And let’s not confuse sex with love. One can have sex without having love. In this world it happens all too often. At best sex without love is hollow self-gratification; at worst it’s a form of rape.

Again I say, without love I am nothing. But from a bloody wooden cross Jesus calls to me. He loves me. Pierced bleeding hands whisper, “I love you!”

My life has meaning, will always have meaning, because Jesus loves me. He loves me to death—his death and my death too.

He fills my zero with love—overflowing love.

My greatest need is met. What about yours?

Response: Thank you, Lord Jesus, for loving me when I wasn’t worth loving. Thank you for filling my life with meaning, purpose and love. I can’t thank you enough. Amen.

Your Turn: Has Jesus whispered to you from the cross? What did he say?