Mankind’s Deepest Need, and What It Means

August 29, 2022

Our family is like most, we try hard to help our children learn to distinguish needs from wants. Like most parents, we hope our children will grow up to be adults who are not enslaved to their desires.

Learning to distinguish between needs and desires, though important, is not the end-all answer. This spiritual skill alone cannot assure a happy, contended life that glorifies God. The life that glorifies God must not only distinguish between needs and desires. It must also recognize that among our true needs, there is one need that is the deepest, the sharpest, and the most life-shaping.

It is this need that holds the greatest power over us. It is this need that shapes the very life of every human. This need is strong. It is unyielding. It holds the power to define us. It holds this power because God made this need. And He made it powerful.

I am speaking of the deepest of all human needs―the need for our Father’s approval, acceptance, and love.

Eternal Reality, Earthly Counterpart

Like most spiritual realities, this need has an earthly counterpart―the need for our earthly father’s approval, acceptance, and love.

For the one with eyes to see, few things are more easily demonstrable in society than this. The tragic explosion of children without an engaged father illustrates this in stark reality. The absence of a father’s love and approval has life-shaping consequences. It creates wounds that are deep and impactful.

No doubt, those wounds can be adapted to, and in most cases overcome, at least to some extent. However, they always leave a mark, just like an old injury that scarred over but still makes its presence painfully known, as long as one knows where to look.

All of this is intended by God to teach us something of a far greater need―the need for His approval, acceptance, and love.

We were created for relationship with God (Matthew 22:34-40). God’s design for us was that we find our most profound satisfaction in knowing Him.

“That I may know Him.” ―Philippians 3:10

Jesus Christ came as the perfect Man to show us what humanity was intended to be. Among other things, he showed us the perfect happiness found in living for the approval of the Father alone (John 5:19). Even His enemies―who were not prone to saying flattering things about Him―recognized that about Him (Mark 12:14).

It is highly instructive that Jesus expressed His greatest agony in terms of a broken relationship with His Father.

…Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “…My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ―Matthew 27:46

God created mankind in such a way that His approval, acceptance, and love would grant them the deepest and most satisfying existence possible.

Enter sin.

Sin disrupted this harmonious plan by creating an unnatural divide (Isaiah 59:2), and banishing mankind into the dismal land of deepest lack. Banishment from the Garden was about far more than having to battle weeds and painful childbirth. Mankind now lacked the thing man needs most.

And this lack proves to be the most life-shaping lack in our existence.

Signs All Around Us

A close look at humanity reveals the life-shaping power of this unmet need. Perhaps the most common expression is found in the drive to succeed, to accomplish, to accumulate, to excel, to establish fame and power, to “make something” of ourselves. This is often our ill-fated attempt to gain that which we need most―God’s approval of us. Deep inside our souls, we think He will approve of us if we can just…well, you fill in the blank.

To be sure, this requires careful thinking. A significant part of the image of God in us is the drive to be a creator, a builder, an achiever. In all of those ways we are rightly imitating our Maker, “In the beginning, God created…” It would be a regrettable overstatement to say that all human efforts at achievement are a fallen response to our need for the Maker’s approval.

But this is to say that achievement, accomplishment, and success are a common carrot for the fallen heart to chase as a means of commending oneself to the heavenly Father. In the case of many image-bearers, it is an attempt to meet the need that we so painfully lack.

Another common expression of this unmet need can be found in the vigorous pursuit of religion―even true religion. It is not difficult to imagine how the fallen heart conflates vigorous religious devotion to the approval of the Father. This is the proverbial hard-working religious devotee whose heart is cold to the God they so diligently serve.

“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” ―Matthew 15:8

Look in the pews of most churches on Sunday morning and you will find these (Matthew 13:24-30). Look in the ranks of every false religion and you will find nothing but these.

This lack can also be expressed in other ways. For some, this can mean a life-long struggle with crippling anxiety and depression, a kind of surrender inside the wounded soul of the one who resigns himself to never obtaining the approval they need. For others, this can manifest itself in a certain type of hatred that is directed toward those who―in the view of the hater―are the ones who possess this love and approval that they lack. This goes a long way toward explaining the world’s hatred of Christians (John 15:18). This even offers a rational explanation for the otherwise unexplainable anti-Semitism that simply will not die. This even gives some insight into the dreadful events of 1930s and 1940s Germany.

Still another expression is that of disappointment in self. When we crave the acceptance of our Father, and our soul seeks to find that through human efforts, then often our failure at those efforts can create a profound sense of disappointment. This is not to say that all disappointment should be understood as misplaced efforts to gain our Father’s love, but it is to say that when failures in our life―moral or otherwise―lead to depression, something deeper is happening.

Still, others can express this through an unfiltered hatred for God, their hatred being fueled by a soul-exhausting frustration at being denied the approval they need―at least denied through their own, self-centered efforts.

Practice being a student of your soul. You can learn much.

Two Truths This Teaches Us

First, this shows us something of the heart of the unregenerate person. It is a heart that has a profound, literally a life-shaping lack. This can be hardest to see in those unregenerate who, fortunately, have a healthy relationship with their earthly father. The blessing of a loving and accepting earthly father can serve to mask the larger and even more important need.

But second, and perhaps more importantly, this can give us insight into the life of faith that we who possess―by virtue of our bond with Jesus Christ―the full acceptance and love of our heavenly Father. In a sense, it is the main theme of the Epistles.

I…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. ―Ephesians 4:1

…so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord… ―Colossians 1:10

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ… ―Philippians 1:27

One passage that particularly brings this to life is found in John’s first Epistle.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. ―1 John 4:16-19

This is one of my favorite passages because it takes us by the hand and walks us through the reality-changing love and acceptance of our Father found in Jesus Christ. Let John lead you through this glorious journey of life-changing love and acceptance by your Father.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

Notice how the apostle begins this section: there is a love the Father has for us, but the challenge we face is “knowing and believing” that this love is really true and really as profound as Scripture claims it is.

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

That is acceptance language―pure and simple. Abiding in God and God abiding in us represents in powerful, poetic imagery a relationship of complete acceptance and approval―and it’s found in the God that is love.

By this is love perfected with us.

“Perfected” in Bible-speak most often refers to completeness and maturity. Love (the Father’s for us) is completed by….what?

By our knowing and believing it. Is it not true that a loving relationship is unfulfilled, incomplete, and even dysfunctional if one party to the relationship is unconvinced of the love and acceptance of the other? We all know that this is a crippling condition, making a healthy relationship hamstrung at best.

God wants better for us.

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.

Here the apostle closes in on his point: There is a coming judgment, and all of those who stand outside the acceptance and approval of the Father will be judged and punished for sin.

But we have reason for confidence as this day approaches. We have reason for confidence because of the faith-bond that unites us to Christ and pays our sin-debt while crediting the righteousness of Christ to us.

Therefore, we have full acceptance and assurance of our Father’s love for us (Hebrews 4:16).

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

To press the point further, the one who stands outside of the acceptance of the Father has great reason to fear. But perfect love―love that knows and believes that we are fully accepted, approved, and loved in Christ―that kind of love casts out the natural fear of judgment and punishment.

The apostle is concerned with convincing his reader that in Christ, there is full and complete acceptance and approval by the Father. Love is perfected. And in that glorious relationship, there is zero reason to fear punishment.

And all of this is His doing.

We love because he first loved us.

He sought us. He loved us. He wanted us. He came for us. He died for us. He rose for us.

And in Christ, we enjoy the full, complete, abounding love, approval, and acceptance of the One whose approval of us means everything.

Absolutely everything.