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Physical Needs Or Spiritual Needs?
Should Christians be more interested in the physical needs of people or should they be more interested in meeting the spiritual needs of people? I think God wants Christians to care about both, but from studying the following passages it seems that Jesus wants Christians to focus more on the spiritual needs of people than on the physical needs. Why?
Here let me try to explain why. First, lets look at following famous passage from Matthew 15 31 to 46. Let's read it together.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
When reading the passage above, at first glance, it would seem that Jesus wants Christians to take care of the physical needs of people. After all He said, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
Now lets read In John Chapter 21 verses 15 to 18a:
“When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?”
He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. “
In the passage above, when Jesus says to Peter, “Feed my sheep”, Jesus seems to be talking about the spiritual needs of His sheep – not so much the physical needs.
Another clue we have is when Jesus referred to Himself as the “Bread Of Life.” In John 6:35, it says: “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Could it be that Jesus was talking about the spiritual needs of people?
In answering this question maybe it would be good to look at the life of the disciples and apostles. For the most part they left their occupations and followed Jesus. They did not have food to give and clothes to give, but rather they had spiritual food to give and spiritual clothes to give. Remember Paul was a tentmaker. He worked as a tentmaker to have enough money to pay his way as a missionary.
After studying the Bible it seems clear that the spiritual needs are the most important to God. That is why Jesus said in Mark 16:15, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Of course if someone has physical possessions such as money, I believe God expects them to be generous with the poor and the needy.
But the primary mission of Christians is to help people with their spiritual needs so that God can renew their minds. And this will enable them to be blessed by God. Then as they live a live that is pleasing to God, God will supply their physical needs.
So I believe the primary resources of the church and the money Christians give to God, should go primarily to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and helping the hurting with their spiritual needs. While meeting the spiritual needs of people, when possible the Christians can help with the and physical needs of those they are ministering too. For example, my Dad was a missionary in Mexico. While preaching and teaching and counseling was his primary task, he also took beans and other food and clothes with him to Mexico to help the poor he was ministering too.
In Galatians 6: 9 and 10, it says, “Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
These two verses teach that we should minister to others and especially to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Now, moving back to the original passage where Jesus will separates the sheep from the goats. I don't want to be a goat. If I miss the point Jesus is making I may waste my life. I've always felt that Jesus was talking about physical needs when he said, “For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink …” But now I believe Jesus is talking about the spiritual needs of people.
But the best way to meet the spiritual needs of people is to help them at a time of crisis and present the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them. That is how the physical needs come in.
As Christians we should look for ways to help people who are hurting. We should provide comfort for their immediate physical and emotional emergencies while at the same time present them with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus fed the five thousand, He did not plan a banquet. But rather He was preaching to them and saw that they had not eaten for days and would faint if they returned home with no food. And so Jesus fed them.
This is the model we should follow in Christian ministry. We should focus on presenting the Gospel while helping meet the physical and emotional needs of those who are interested in the Gospel.
Jesus also went around healing the sick and telling them to go and sin no more. This is also the model we should follow in Christian ministry. Our ministries should try to help people who are hurting and point them to Christ.
Our vision here at MarriageRomance.com is to help every church in America have a free “coaching” page. We believe if churches would pass out flyers in their neighborhood saying, “if you need help with a problem, we offer free coaching. Just go to this web page and tell us your problem and we will contact you by email or by phone or come visit with you in person.” We believe that people would respond and souls would get saved.
We believe churches could train mature Christians in the congregation to do the coaching. Each church could have a Sunday School class where they would meet each week to share their coaching experiences and pray for those who they have coached.
Then Internet ministries like MarriageRomance.com who offer free coaching could forward coaching requests to the local churches who would then handle the coaching requests.
Please pray that God will help us here at MarriageRomance.com to have the resources to do this. We currently do not have the resources to carry this vision out. The founder of MarriageRomance.com works full time to support his family and the web site.
Someone needs to help all the churches in America have a coaching web page, and help them develop the coach training materials for their mature Christian coaches and tie all the church coaching pages together in a network so that Para-church organizations such as MarriageRomance.com can feed coaching requests directly to the local churches.
Please pray that God will motivate Christians and churches to implement this vision.
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