Recently, a Dunkin Donuts commercial aired not advertising donuts but coffee. Statistics reveal that coffee has become one of the fastest growing industries around the world. The reason Dunkin Donuts is focusing more on coffee than donuts is because coffee is addictive. There are plenty of people who believe they cannot get their day started without a cup of coffee. The truth is we can have an energized day without a cup of coffee. Jesus is all you need.
Advertisements, people, and even our own minds convince us that we need more than Jesus. But Paul reminds us as he did the Church at Philippi, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:19. No one else can supply our needs, except God. There are people in abusive and unhealthy relationships because they are convinced they cannot live without the abusive person. There are people living under the weight of depression because of the loss of a loved one or the loss of a relationship. These people cannot heal from the grief, because they have the mistaken belief that they lost their lives when they lost the loved one or the relationship. There are people suffering from serious addictions, because they do not realize that God supplies all our needs.
Others are missing out on the opportunity to fulfill dreams and meet goals, because they are depending on others to pull them through or to get them the ‘hook up.’ Rather than praying about their situation, they are begging a human to do what God can only do for them. The truth is God supplies all our needs. When we realize that God is all we need, we will no longer allow humans to control our destinies. We will know that God will provide. When we realize that God supplies our needs, whoever hurts us or rejects us cannot have the victory over us. They may have meant for bad, but God meant it for good.
For us to embrace this theological truth, we must teach ourselves the difference between a want and a need. A want is a desire of the flesh. We overeat because we feed our flesh what it wants, rather than what it needs. We end up making bad decisions, because we get caught up into what we want, rather than what is good for us. So many people are in financial debt because of wants. The truth is we have more than enough to cover our needs. God is awesome. Once we realize God supplies our needs, we can yield to his will, do his bidding, and give him the glory.
We cannot live without what we need. In Spiderman II, Spiderman struggled with the reality that although he had special powers (enabling him to solve problems and rescue people from dangerous situations) he needed someone to do the same for him. We have run into this same dilemma. Often our pride gets in the way of our need for God. But when we have run out of supplies for others, and when we can no longer supply our own needs, we are compelled to admit our need for God and God’s ability to supply our needs. God supplied our needs over 2000 years ago on Calvary. He gave us Jesus, who provides for us, strengthens us, forgives us, and takes care of us. I don’t know who Marvin Gaye was singing about, but God is all I need to get by—God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
