Need

Luke 5:31-32 - And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

 

There is a reason guys notoriously hate to ask directions: It can be hard to ask for help. We have to acknowledge a lack on our part. We have to recognize we have a need. If (I think) I have no lack, I can see myself as better than those who do have needs. I am complete. They are incomplete. Nowhere is this attitude more common than among religious people.

Jesus had such issues with the Jewish religious leaders of his day, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, because they refused to acknowledge their own limitations while criticizing and ostracizing others whose weaknesses were obvious.  Here, the Pharisees were wondering why a “holy” man like Jesus would eat dinner with a group of sinful tax collectors.  Jesus points out their faulty reasoning by explaining that only those who admit their “sickness” can be healed. Like Jesus said to the Pharisees who attacked the man born blind that Jesus healed in John 9, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.”

It can be tough to enter the vulnerable position of admitting that we have problems and that we need Jesus’ help, but only then can we receive his healing. When we admit our mistakes to him, he forgives, and the greatest of all relationships is eternally restored.