Wants and Needs

 Wants and Needs

Minute by minute, we face a choice.  Our wants versus our needs.  Is what I desire simply something I simply want?  

Or is what I desire something I truly need to survive?  It sure sounds simple but it’s VERY difficult in practice.

Here in Acts 3:1-11, we meet a man who is certain about what he needs.  He is disabled and he needs to earn an income.  

But Peter and John take one look at him and correct him.  He thinks he needs money.  But what he really needs is Jesus.

Luke tells us that Pete and John were on their way to the temple to pray around 3pm (v1).  We already know that members of the first church made temple attendance part of the daily lives (Acts 2:46).  

The good doctor enlightens us to one reason they went: to pray.  Apparently first century Jews observed three times of prayer each day: 9am, noon and 3pm.  

How life had changed for these two men in what must seem like the blink of an eye.  Only three years ago they were commercial fishermen on Lake Galilee.  

Pete was the grizzled veteran angler.  Think of the guys you see on "The Deadliest Catch."  He worked for John's dad.  

By all accounts John was much younger.  Probably a teenager.  

That was all before the radical Rabbi/Carpenter changed everything (Lk 5:1-11).  They were no longer catching fish, but people.  They had left everything behind.  Everything. 

It was now 3 o'clock.  It was time for prayer.  So Pete and John do what good Jews do when they're in Jerusalem.  They head to the temple to pray.

While they were on their way, they saw "a lame man from birth" being carried (v2).  This man had never been able to work.  A birth defect left him disabled.  He had spent his entire life (40 years according to Acts 4:22) relying on others to carry him.  

They set the man down just outside the temple at Beautiful Gate.  This was his spot.  He went there everyday.  For someone who relying on the kindness of others to survive, it made perfect sense.  

People headed to worship were perfect targets.  They were loaded with both guilt and cash.  They had money for offerings.  

In my visit to Jerusalem in 1997, I was stunned to see much of the same.  The temple is obviously gone, but people crowd the gates of the Old City to beg.  

Some are disabled.  Some are simply panhandling.  It's a sad scene.  It's a grim reminder of Jesus teaching.  "You always have the poor with you" (Mt 26:11).

At this point, Pete and John make their way toward Beautiful Gate (v3).  The disabled man begs them for money.  The two apostles stop and look the man dead in the eye.  

Apparently he had discounted them and moved on to panhandle others.  Rocky gets his attention, "Look at us" (v4).  "Sweet!" the man must have thought.  

The disabled man probably got his wallet ready (v5).  He would get what he needed.  He would get what he came for.  He would soon find out it was only what he wanted.

But instead of handing him a few bucks, Pete gives him something else.  He gives him what he truly needs.  

"I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!" (v6).

The man thought he needed money.  And why not?  He’d never walked.  Ever.  What he really needed was Jesus.  

Take a look over at Peter's first epistle.  He writes that we were not ransomed "with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ" (1Pet 1:18-19).  

Certainly this event at Beautiful Gate is exactly the kind of thing he was writing about in his later letter.  Jesus is so much more valuable than anything we could ever imagine.  He is truly our Greatest Need. 

The man had lost hope.  He didn't think he would ever walk.  It had been 40 long, frustrating years.  The thought of ever walking again had long left his heart.

Pete reaches down and lifts him to his feet (v7).  For the first time in 40 years, this man is walking!  

But he's not just walking.  "And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God."  

The once disabled man is literally dancing and skipping through the temple courts with his two new best friends.  All because they understood the difference between true wants and needs.

The people couldn't believe what they were seeing (v9-10).  They knew this guy.  He was a regular at the gate.  He was there everyday.  

But there he was running around the temple grounds like a kindergartner.  "And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him."

The miraculous healing was an important sign of the apostles' authority.  Such signs and wonders let the people know that they had the seal of approval from God Himself.  

This event is very similar to Jesus' healing of the man born blind in John 9.  And like that event, the story doesn't end here.  Soon the members of the Sanhedrin will stick their noses into things.

But on this wonderful and miraculous afternoon, we see an incredible example of the difference between wants and needs.

As a follower of Jesus, you may not have change in your pocket.  But you do have something (or Someone!) that can change everything.  Understand the difference between wants and needs.

©2011

Jay Jennings