Fellowship in Depth – Part 3 – Meet Basic Needs
Romans 5:5 “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
One of the things that I have discovered in traveling is that no matterwhere we come from, what culture we might have or language we speak, we all have the same basic human needs. What are they? A sense of acceptance, to love and being loved and a sense of self-worth.
One psychologist brought out that there is no such thing as mental illnessunless the brain has been impaired in some way. What he was saying was that when people’s basic needs are not being met they begin to do some strange things that when observed by others we begin to think that they are mentally off. We may look at our children and think they are acting strange and perhaps are “not all there” because they are engaged in things like drugs, sex, alcohol, etc., but this could be that their basic human needs are not being met. We see Joe Blow (fictitious name) standing on the street corner shouting out that he is Abraham Lincoln. We tend to think that he is mentally off when in reality nobody recognizes him as Joe Blow and his basic need of acceptance is not being met, but as Abraham Lincoln it is a different case to him.
We all have a need to be accepted and to belong; this is a strong human need.In our evangelism one of the issues we miss is that it is hard to get a person to leave one kingdom (kingdom of darkness) for another (kingdom of light). What locks us into our kingdom is acceptance. To move into the kingdom of light there must also be the acceptance. This is why little fellowship groups, where acceptance is being manifested, are a powerful magnet to the kingdom of light.
Paul Tournier said: “Men’s loneliness is linked with fear. Men fear one another, fear to be crushed in life, fear to be misunderstood.” Anotherneed is a feeling or sense of self-worth. When we realize that we are worth something to somebody it makes a big difference in our life as well as in our outlook.
When there is a real fellowship taking place we begin to see that not only are others in the same boat as we are, but that we also have the ability to respond. In helping meet the needs of others we find our own needs beingmet as well. This is the way God has made us. We are made for fellowship. To build His church we must discover fellowship in depth.
One of the most misunderstood words today is the word LOVE. We use thisword for so many things. I love my dog, my car, ice cream, my neighbor and we might also say: “I love God.” Yet, so often what we mistake for love is nothing more than wishy-washy sentimentality or personal preferences.
Love must always be accompanied by the truth. These two are inseparable. They will always go together like a hand and glove.
Our text is Romans 5:5: “His love has been poured forth into our heartsby the Holy Spirit.” This love from God is poured forth by the Holy Spirit, but it is through His Body that we mostly experience it. This is where true fellowship is found, as it should be. We are infinitely precious in the sight of God, therefore we all have ‘self-worth.’
We see how these three very important needs are met in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been accepted in the Him, the Beloved of God. We know that He loves us because greater love has no man than to lay down His life for others, and this is what the Lord Jesus did for us.