In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: What basis do I have for worrying about getting my needs met? And once in a while, when I get tempted to get concerned about something, I have to tell myself this: God, if it's too big for you, then just call me home because I can't handle it anyway.

I mean, let's just forget the whole mess right here. If you can't handle it, there is absolutely no point in me going on. And the truth is, he always can. We have feelings about it, but we have no legitimate basis for worrying about getting our needs met.

Guest (Male): What's the most pressing need you have right now? What's your emotional response to that need? If you're often worried and apprehensive, stay with us for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.

Today's message challenges us to wait on God for his timing and provision as we hear some insight into how to get our needs met the Lord's way.

Dr. Charles Stanley: If I should ask you what are your needs, some of you would give me a long list. Some of you would give me a short list. But the important thing is not what our needs are, but how do you get them met?

And remember this: the bottom line of all sin is trying to get my needs met independently of God's way and God's timing. All sin in essence is trying to get my needs met independently of God's way, God's method, and God's timing. So it's not a question of what needs we have, because God knows all about those, but how do we get our needs met?

So I want you to turn, if you will, to a passage that you may think, "Well, what does this have to do with getting your needs met?" But Matthew chapter 6, beginning with the 25th verse. I want us to read through the rest of that chapter. This is the chapter in which he deals with the problem also of anxiety.

But in this passage is an answer that, once you settle the issue of how you're going to get your needs met, God will begin to work in your life in a very unusual way. So he says, beginning in verse 25, "For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor do they reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span? And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, you men of little faith?"

"Do not be anxious then, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'With what shall we clothe ourselves?' For all these things the Gentiles, or the pagans, eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will take care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

He gives us three commands here. Verse 25: "I say to you, do not be anxious." Verse 31: "Do not be anxious." Verse 34: "Do not be anxious." That is, don't worry about it. Don't get all upset. Don't get anxious and worried and frustrated about the whole issue.

Then what he does, he gives us four illustrations as to why we shouldn't. He says, here's the futility of it all. Look, if you will, beginning in verse 26. From nature, he says, "Look at the birds." Now, the birds neither sow nor reap. They don't worry or fret flying around so anxious. He says, "But your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" So if you look at the birds, you realize it's futile to be worried about getting our needs met.

Secondly, he says, "And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life span?" That is, we can't do anything about the length of our life or how tall we are. You can't do anything about that. Then he says, "I want you to look at the lilies of the field." He says, "Why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil, nor do they spin."

He said even Solomon—remember that Solomon reigned as king in Israel at the height of its glory—and he said he couldn't even match the lilies of the field. Why are we worried about those? He says, because God arrays them like that. He says, likewise, the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow it's gone.

So he says all of these things, they live and have what they need and they're not worried, they're not anxious. Birds don't worry; flowers don't fold up because they're anxious about rain. All those things just exist and live, and he says your heavenly Father takes care of every single one of them.

God knows every single thing there is to know about us. He knows every emotion that you have. He knows those emotional needs you have. He knows the physical needs, the material needs, he knows the financial needs. He knows every single need we have because he says everything is laid bare to him. He's omniscient. That is, there's not anything that God doesn't know—past, present, and future.

You say, "Well, but I have needs that are coming." God knows all about the future because the future is always in the present with God. Remember that no matter how long or how far in the future you and I are concerned about, that's always in the present with God. He's already provided for every single need we'll ever have for the future. It's already been provided for, and so therefore we don't have to be concerned about that.

And what is happening is that you and I are doubting God and instead of expressing faith in him, we are troubled by being focused on the circumstances and the needs rather than on the source of those needs.

And I want you to turn back to 2 Chronicles, the 16th chapter and the 9th verse. 2 Chronicles, he says, "For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His." That is, when you have God's support, you have all the support you need.

And then if you will look in Psalm 33, and there's a passage here. Psalm 33, and listen to what he says in verse 13: "The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; from His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He understands all their works."

That is, God is looking and seeing intently into our heart, knowing our emotional needs, knowing our spiritual needs, our physical needs, our material needs. There's not a single thing that he's overlooked. He knows them all.

Now, if you'll think about computers and what they can tell us and whatever information we feed them, what they tell us back. Can you think for just a moment of the infinite mind of an infinite God who knows everything that is? All information has been computed properly.

There are no mistakes that come out of the mind of God. No errors that come out of his mind. He never misjudges what you and I think or what we feel. He never misjudges our needs. He doesn't go by any clock that's either slow or fast, but God knows perfectly, absolutely, every single need at any and every given moment in our life—past, present, future.

There is not anything that you could think of that God hasn't already thought about. And you can't possibly think of any concern that you have that God not only has not thought about, but already provided for.

So the truth is, what we have to ask is: What basis do I have for worrying about getting my needs met? What basis is it? And we don't have any basis for it. We have feelings about it, but we don't have any real scriptural basis for worrying about our future needs. That does not mean that we're not to plan, that we're not to be wise, we're to invest wisely in either our time or our money. We're to give it wisely, spend it wisely. All of that is a part of the way we get our needs met.

And once in a while, when I get tempted to get concerned about something, I have to tell myself this: God, if it's too big for you, then just call me home because I can't handle it anyway. I mean, let's just forget the whole mess right here. If you can't handle it, there is absolutely no point in me going on. And the truth is, he always can.

We have no legitimate basis for worrying about getting our needs met. Now, I may not like the way God does it. I may not like his timing. I may not like who they come through or who they fail to come through. But the question is: Does God know my needs? Yes, he knows them. What's he going to do about them? He's going to do exactly what he's done for birds and lilies and grass and all the other animals of the field. God is going to provide.

So the question is: Why is it that you and I are willing to rebel against God, disobey God, choose deliberately to get into sin to get our needs met? Needs we think that have to be met right now, and we disobey and rebel against God when we know that God has already said, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has already blessed you with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." That is, he has already provided for every single need I already have now, will have in the future, and he knows every single one.

What is the most pressing need that you have? Is it finances? Is it some emotional need that you have? Is it some relationship that needs to be dealt with? What is the most pressing need in your life? Well, let me ask you this: Do you feel sort of helpless to do anything about it? Then what are you going to do about it? If it is a pressing need and you feel helpless to do anything about it, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wring your hands and say, "God, why don't you do something?" Or are you going to trust him?

Well, what he gives us in this passage is very simple, but here's the problem: Most of us trip over the simple things. We say, "Oh, now you just got to be more—it's got to be more complex than that." Do you realize that in this passage Jesus took the simplest things his hearers could understand? They understood birds and flowers and grass and measurements. He didn't talk about something they didn't understand. He made it as simple as possible. He said, here's the way you get your needs met.

And he says this is the way you do it. So move on down, if you will, and look in verse 33. He says, "But seek first"—put the priority on your interest in seeking—"the kingdom of God and His righteousness," and then what? This is God's promise. He says if I put my priorities where they belong, God—listen to what he's saying—God assumes full responsibility for adding to me all of my needs, and God is never late and he's never in too big of a hurry.

Now, what is his kingdom? The kingdom of God is not necessarily a location. The kingdom of God, according to the Scripture, is the rule of God. So when he says the kingdom of God is within you, that is the rule and the reign of Christ is within us. That is, when Jesus Christ's kingdom is active within my heart, that is when I am living in his kingdom according to his authority, I am living under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

What he's saying in this passage is this: Seek the rule of Christ in your heart. That is, seek to know the will of God and to follow it, walking in his spirit, obeying God. The kingdom of God is the rule of God in our heart.

So what he's saying is this: If I want to get my needs met, what am I to do? Am I to major on getting them met, or am I to major on my relationship to Jesus Christ? Now, if I have a problem with someone else, let's say there's hard feelings or misunderstanding or something. I've learned in my own heart the best way for me to deal with that is not to deal with them, but to deal with me.

If there's a misunderstanding, I deal with me; let God deal with them. If I get to dealing with them, then I have a distracted mind. I've got to think about me, them, and God. If I deal with me, God deals with them. I can focus on him, let him deal with me. It's amazing how they straighten up. But if I get to dealing with them, then I get myself in trouble. First of all, I come at it in a judgmental point of view, a critical point of view, evaluating it the way I see it, what they did to me or how they wronged me. Then I'm going to get in trouble.

If I seek the mind of Christ and I want Christ to dominate, to control, to rule and to govern and to guard and to guide my life, and I major on that, it is amazing what happens to them. Now, he said you want to get your needs met? Don't major on getting your needs met. Don't focus on your needs. Focus on what? Focus on living under the lordship of Jesus Christ in your life. Focus on what? Focus on walking in his will obediently to him.

Now, the kingdom of God includes our reaching out to others. It includes the establishment of the kingdom of God on this earth one of these days. But what he's primarily speaking of here is God's rule in my life. That is, I am to major and to seek and to pursue, and I am to work at, if necessary, being obedient to God.

How am I going to be obedient to God? I've got to find out what God wants me to do. How am I going to find out what God wants me to do? Get into God's word and see what God says. When I get into God's word and see what God says, then I know what God wants me to do. When I know what God wants me to do, then I can follow him. You say, "Well, I don't know what God wants." Then it's your responsibility to get in the word and find out the will of God for your life.

But the first step in getting my needs met is not working at getting them met, but doing what? Focusing my attention upon God's rule in my life, walking obediently before him. Because what's going to happen? If you walk obediently before God, God's going to guide you every step of the way.

If I'm focusing out here on what to do here and what to do there, rather than on the Lord Jesus Christ ruling and reigning in my life, I'm going to make a mess of things. And all of us will have to confess we've made a lot of messes a lot of times, amen? Because we got our eyes off him trying to do our thing, get our needs met our way instead of seeking and pursuing and diligently adhering to the will and the purpose and the plan of God, obediently walking before him.

He says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." And God says when you focus on my rule and my reign in your heart, he says—listen to this—he didn't say you'll manage all these things. He didn't say you'll be able to get all this. He says all your needs will be what? Added to you by whom? By God. Listen, he didn't say you'd get them all. He said, "These things will be added to you."

So God will guide us to make right decisions in our life. Now listen, he said first of all, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," and then he said seek what? He says, "Seek the righteousness of God." Now, what in the world is the righteousness of God? We say, well, that's salvation. No, that's not what he's referring to here.

What he's referring to in this passage is this: I am to pursue a life that is determined to be obedient to God and to develop the characteristics of Christ in my life, which begins with not something I add to me, but rather allowing Jesus Christ who is our life to express himself through us.

What does he say in Romans 8:29? That God has predestined something; that God has predestined that you and I be conformed to his likeness. Why? Because God has assumed responsibility for meeting all of our needs. And so how does he get them met? God gets them met when we walk in obedience to him and allow the character of Christ who is within us to become a part of our conversation, our conduct, our character—that is, we are living, walking expressions of Christ.

If I'm out here trying to get my needs met, I'm probably going to do some things that are out of character with Christ. But if I focus on who I am in him and who he is in me and what he's doing in my life and what he desires to do in my life, he says, "I'm going to take care of those things." We major on character qualities that magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. We major on following him. And what does he do? He takes care of all these things that you and I will never be able to manage.

There's this little verse that goes like this:

He knows, he loves, and he cares;

Nothing this truth can dim.

He saves the very best for those

Who leave the choices to him.

The choices of what and the choices of when. And so I want to ask you: What is it that you're already entangled with, trying to get some need met instead of letting God do it? What is the most pressing need of your life? And are you willing to trust the Lord to meet that need? And are you willing to focus your attention upon learning to walk obediently, submissively under his lordship, majoring on building those qualities into your life that manifest and reflect and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ? Friend, I want to tell you something. There's no way for me to tell you the way I'd like to—that works. Amen. It works.

And folks who are out here trying to get it done their way, they're going to be awfully disappointed. And sometimes teenagers, young people, you've got to have it now. Well, you can have it now, but I want to remind you of something. Don't forget this: the consequences are coming later. And I'll tell you, you're not going to like them. Oh, you think you are. The devil says, "Not going to matter. You'll get over it, don't worry about it." That's the devil's lie always. "Don't worry about the future," that's his line. "Don't worry about the future."

God says don't worry about the future, too, but focus your attention upon me. The devil says don't worry about the future, go ahead and get your needs met. What he doesn't tell you is you're going to hurt, and you're going to hurt, and you're going to hurt, and you're going to hurt, and you're going to hurt, and you're going to hurt. You focus your attention upon the Lord Jesus Christ, major on building character qualities, walking in his lordship, what happens? You're going to be happy, you're going to be happy, you're going to be happy. It's just that simple.

See, you listen to one of two people: the devil's lies or God's truth. The devil's lie says, "Get it now. You better get it now." God's truth is, "I give my very best to those who leave the choice to me."

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. God loves you unconditionally and deeply, and he is thoroughly aware of your circumstances. So if you are a follower of Christ, you can rely on the Lord to guide you through your situation and let your anxiety subside.

You'll learn more about how to live a more stable and consistent Christian life at in-touch.org. And be sure to look for a replay of this lesson at the link to Today on Radio. Connect to our online bookstore to order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message, "How to Get Your Needs Met the Lord's Way." Again, that's in-touch.org.

You can also call or text 1-800-IN-TOUCH. If you prefer to write, our address is: In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357. Just ahead, we'll hear more insight on our needs and God's ability. Today's Moment with Charles Stanley is coming up.

In Touch Plus is streaming on Local Now, featuring all the best of Dr. Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: It pays to have strong convictions based on the word of God. He's working out things that you and I would never know about in our future.

Guest (Male): In Touch Plus, your streaming network for quality Christian programming 24/7. Now watch this. In Touch Plus, streaming free on Local Now.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Guest (Male): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org. You're listening to In Touch. Does God know your needs? Here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: What basis do you have for your worry, your anxiety, and your fear that your needs are not going to be met? You say, "But I tell you, you don't know what kind of needs I have." I don't have to know, but I know who does know. We all have asked that question, "But you just don't know what my needs are."

Let me ask you this: do you believe God knows your needs? You know he does. Here's the problem: we listen to the devil. We listen to Satan say, "You better get it now. You're not going to have this opportunity forever. You better get it now. You better get into this right now. You better get this relationship going now. Listen, you're already 25 and you're not married. You better get on with it right now."

And a lot of folks who think when they reach 25 or 30 years of age, it's a hopeless situation. Nothing is ever hopeless for one who walks in the will of God. And that is hopelessness from our point of view, looking at circumstance, not looking at this omnipotent, omniscient, loving God who says, "I have given you my best in giving you my son Jesus Christ. If I've given you him, on what basis do you think I'm going to keep anything from you?"

Guest (Male): Learn more about the never-failing trustworthiness of God at in-touch.org. If today's program gave you renewed motivation to obey God, we'd love to hear from you. Next week on In Touch, how do you remain strong when your life seems to be in pieces? It begins with trusting God. Be encouraged when you listen to "Out of This Wreck I Rise," Monday on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.