Man's Greatest Need -- Acceptance

Man's greatest need is not money, not power or prestige, not even life.

Man needs acceptance. The bigger word, the more imposing word, is righteousness.

There is something wrong with man, something deeper than anything his mind or his feelings can ascertain.

God created man with eternity in his heart:

"He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

So goes the King James version, but more recent translations bear out the fulness of what God has placed within us:

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (New International Version)

Eternity, all that God has done, does, will do, He has placed in our hearts.

God made man in His image, and meant for us to remain in His image. Adam sinned, and the whole human race adopted his image of sin instead, starting with his own sons:

"And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:" (Genesis 5:3)

"In his own likeness" -- in Adam.

We were meant to be in God's likeness. We walk around trying to create this likeness through our efforts and affiliations.

Yet only through Christ can we be received back into the image, the likeness, the family in which we were made.

Man's greatest need is acceptance. We need to know that we are OK. We need an identity that is stable, certain, which shores us up and supports us. This identity has to be eternal, since God has placed in us eternity.

God has provide the Way, through His Son Jesus Christ, that we may have the life, and that more abundantly.

Man's greatest need is acceptance, or righteousness.

Jesus told His hearers during His earthly ministry about the importance of righteousness:

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew 6: 33)

This righteousness is more than a good standing; it's the perfect standing which Jesus has now, resurrected in full glory at the right hand of the Father:

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" (Ephesians 2: 6)

and

"1If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3: 1-4)

and of course:

"17Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4:17)

The acceptance, the eternity, the eternal security and certain that we seek, we find in Christ.

Man's greatest need: eternal acceptance. God's solution: Christ Jesus.