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Writer's pictureBecca Whitham

Jesus is(n't) All I Need


Allow me to rant.

Several weeks ago at church, the worship band led us in a song where the refrain went something like this:

"All I need is you, Lord.

You are all I need.

All I need is you, Lord.

You are all I need."

(Repeat 4x)

Then we sang the song about four times. That's 32 times singing something that's an innocuous sounding lie. Jesus isn't all I need.

Before you go ballistic, allow me to qualify that statement. On one level--salvation--Jesus is all I need. I understand that, agree with it, and trust it for my eternal soul. But after salvation, Jesus stops being all I need and here's proof: in the Garden of Eden, when everything was right in the world and Adam walked with God in perfect fellowship, God said, "It's not good for the man to be alone." (Emphasis mine.) To remedy the problem, God created another human being, Eve.

While this correlates directly to marriage, think about it in the broader sense. God said Adam was alone because there wasn't another human being with whom he could share life. God never intended to be "all" anyone ever needed. He intended for humans to have human companionship.

That's why "You are all I need" is a lie. And here's where the lie starts to get real...

If Jesus is all I need, then he's all you need, too. Therefore, if you're struggling, I can sit back in my comfy chair and offer up a prayer safe in the knowledge that I don't have to lift a finger because Jesus is all you need. On the flip side, if I'm the one struggling, "Jesus is all I need" whispers shame because my faith is too weak to deal with whatever is causing my pain--a double whammy that keeps me silently hurting when God said we should bear each other's burdens.

Comfortable laziness and shame-filled isolation...not exactly how God intended us to live our lives.

Jesus isn't all I need. Sometimes I need human arms to wrap me in a hug, human feet to walk beside me, human ears to listen, and a human mouth to speak wisdom. That's why, when Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22: 36-40)

In other words, when you love God you love people; and when you love people you love God.

Rant over.


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