"Do You Need Me Now?"

"Do you need me now?" may sound similar to the Verizon commercial depicting the man who is wondering if someone can hear him now.  Yet Jesus is clearly asking, "Do you need Me?'  Do you need His saving power, His help, and His direction?

One of the absolute signs of the fallen nature of man is that we think we don't need God.  In general, man is so proud.  We even seem to act like we are "God" when we contend our way is best, our thoughts are correct, and deep down we feel that we can always work our way out of trouble.  Yet, pride was the cause of Satan's fall and the motivation of Eve's eating the forbidden fruit to become "like God."   

Have you reached the place where all your ways and efforts cannot possibly get you out of a situation and you really need God?  What about being cleansed from the foolish or wrong choices you have made?  What about having a genuine peace and joy about your life?  How are your relationships going?  Maybe the barrier is that we don't trust that God can really help and we are still looking for other ways to make it.  

Perhaps all of life is a long-term incremental course to teach us that all the plans of man are like a barren desert.  Sometimes there seems no easy way out, and all we can do is be like Peter, who when asked if he was going to leave Jesus, said "to whom shall we go, You have the words of eternal life."  Yet Jeremiah 17 states that trusting God in difficult circumstances is like fresh streams of water to your soul. In His light we become light, resulting in a progressive growth into Christ until He literally becomes all in all. 

Certainly, there is no situation so totally out of our hands as what happens the moment we die.  All our exalted ideas and philosophies are powerless to change things.  Everything that follows is completely up to God.  Is He faithful to do what He promised for those who put faith in Him?  Man is completely helpless to control his eternal destiny.

God created man to know Him and be with Him forever.  The entirety of life has many significant activities and milestones, but when it is all said and done, we stand before God accountable for what we have done with His Son.  "Behold the man" may have been Pilate's words to the crowd, but the reality is that everything depends on how you behold Him.  Unless life is an opportunity to respond to Him and all He did for man by dying on the cross, than the only other option is that all life is a period of struggle to survive until you die.  What a completely wasted existence to fail to find the purpose for which we were made!

Christmas isn't just about a baby in a manger and all the periphery around it.  Rather, it is a divine statement that God sent Jesus to meet our need and save man.  A valid question is "From what?" From sin and eternal death, from the consequences of his own fleshly nature that leads to death, from the human pride that refuses to make room for God is his life.  Maybe the Christmas bells will ring out for you this year, "Do you need Me now?"  Eternity and your being complete depends on your answer.