I sat in the optometrist’s office with a searing headache behind my eyes. That’s partly why I was there. The more pressing reason was that I couldn’t see very well. Everything had gone foggy a week before. No matter how I tried to blink the fog away, it clouded my vision as though I were looking through an old piece of glass that wouldn’t come clean anymore.
An infection of some sort, I thought. I’d need a prescription—some medicated drops maybe. That would alleviate the pain and clear up the disturbing redness around my blue irises. I expected the doctor to write a prescription and call it good. He did, in fact, write a prescription, but not before sitting back in his chair and looking at me intently. “I believe you have a systemic disease. Autoimmune, probably. Do you have joint pain? You need to see a specialist as soon as possible.” He wrote a prescription for steroids that would quiet the raging inflammation in my eyes. “You’ll eventually go blind if you don’t address this other condition. Your eyes are telling you something else is wrong.”
Stunned, I took the prescription, left the office, and called my GP for testing. A few weeks later, I was diagnosed with a genetic autoimmune disease.
We don’t always need what we think we need. I thought I needed an antibiotic or something to address the eye symptoms. But there was a more serious underlying condition I didn’t know I had, and it needed to be addressed in order for my other health problems to be resolved.
Sometimes we talk about Jesus as though he were a quick prescription. We go to him with the aches and pains of life, thanking him for dying on the cross so that we can have peace or physical healing or financial stability. It’s true that we can address the Father because of what the Son has done at the cross. Hebrews 10 teaches us that Jesus bought us access to God and that we can address him boldly with our requests. But sometimes I’m afraid I communicate to unbelievers that coming to Jesus is something we do for the stresses and irritants of life. He patches up our regrets and upsets like a good little Savior, and that’s the joy of following Jesus: he fixes our problems.
But life’s upsets—big or small—aren’t what we need most from him.
We don’t always need what we think we need.
When we study the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we see people coming to him for healing or freedom from oppression. Some people wanted the Messiah to be a political leader who would upend the government and free them from the rule of Rome. After all, the last time the people of God cried out for deliverance for four hundred years, God sent Moses and plagues and a torn sea and miracles in the desert. After four hundred years of silence from God, surely the next deliverer would come the same way. Jesus did come with signs and wonders, but he did so to validate his identity. Signs and wonders weren’t the end but rather the means to show them he was the Son of God. The people begged for more, but miracles of healing weren’t what they needed the most. And miracles would never be enough for some, even if they saw the impossible with their own eyes (see Matt. 11:20-24).
Jesus came to deliver people from much more than temporary problems. Even the ones he healed eventually died. Lazarus and the little dead girl—they both succumbed to death again at some point. And not because Jesus’ miracles were ineffective but because the temporary healings—while meaningful in and of themselves—weren’t what Jesus ultimately came to give. He came to give something bigger and better and much longer-lasting.
He came to set people free from sin, Satan, and death.
It’s written into the Christmas story, a line we can probably recite from memory. The angel said to Joseph, “[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Here was Jesus’ ultimate purpose—not giving us all the temporary things we think we need, but giving us what we need the most. Salvation. Rescue. Redemption. Atonement. New life. We might come to him with a temporary problem: “Lord, give me peace. Give me health. Provide for our financial needs.” But he knows our true diagnosis, and he has answered it at the cross. Think of the paralytic in Matthew 9:1-8. He was physically helpless to even come to Jesus for healing; his friends had to bring him. And though his physical needs were real and pressing and urgent, Jesus provided healing for his biggest problem: sin. “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven” (Matt. 9:2), he said. And then, to prove he was who he said he was, he also healed the man of his physical malady. The man got up and walked.
Thankfully, God is gracious to supply our other, lesser needs (and let’s be honest, sometimes they don’t feel “lesser.” Sometimes they’re pretty big!). We are urged to cast all our anxieties on him because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7). He didn’t stop at the cross but is pleased to continually give us good gifts. I don’t want to minimize his care for the sparrow or his care for our light and momentary afflictions (see Matt. 10:28-32, 2 Cor. 4:17).
But, when I’m talking to an unsaved neighbor or friend, I must be clear that though Jesus meets the needs of fear, provision, and stability, he first meets our deepest need, which is reconciliation to God. And it is because of that reconciliation that we can approach the Father with our other, lesser needs. We might come to him first with our temporary troubles, but what we need first is what he has provided in taking our place at the cross and saving us from our sins. Sometimes God uses the temporary trials to reveal our deeper need for forgiveness of our sins. Like the inflammation clouding my vision revealed a more serious problem, often our earthly troubles will point us to our need for salvation, and that is a gift from God. For what far outlasts our physical suffering, longings, or problems is our eternity.
When we talk about why we want others to come to Jesus, we must address the need for reconciliation, the need for atonement for our sins before a holy God, the need to be made alive in Christ. The good news of the good news is that Jesus has made it possible for us to come to the Father for what we need, even when we’re don’t know how much we need it.
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Photo by Aaron Jean on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.