Everything we really need comes from God

Not long ago, I was looking through some old papers of my daddy’s and I found a sermon named, “What do you need this Christmas?” It seems to me that Daddy’s question still stands for all of us today. So I will pose the question a little differently: What do you really need this Christmas?

The word need is one of those words that we use casually. I have thought in my lifetime that I needed many things. When I was in third grade, all the girls on my block were getting Western Flier bicycles for Christmas. I informed my parents that if I got a bike, that particular kind of bike, I wouldn’t want anything else for Christmas. I thought I needed one, and besides that everyone had one. I got the Western Flyer. But, after a few weeks I was not even riding my bike and neither were all the other girls on my block. We all had outgrown that stage.

I remember on one occasion when Mother took me to buy a pair of Sunday shoes. In the store window were the most beautiful saddle oxfords in red and gray-the colors of the Marshall Junior High Kittens. Oh, how I wanted those... and I told my mother I needed them, that I couldn’t live without them. I didn’t get the shoes and I thought I would just die because all my friends had pairs. Yet, in a few weeks the new had worn off the shoes and they were old and everyone stopped wearing them. I didn’t even want the shoes by then. It was just a passing desire at the time.

In high school everyone drove their own cars to school. I thought having a car to drive to school was an absolute necessity. After all, we did live two blocks from the school and I certainly was not going to walk. In college, all my friends were getting their ears pierced and I thought I needed to get my ears pierced. I also thought I needed other things in college: a new outfit for every event and the need to be popular and well liked.

After Charlie and I married, we thought we needed a more sophisticated stereo system for the living room. We bought one and then thought we needed a new car with a better stereo system. We thought that was such a great need even though we had a car that ran perfectly. We wanted a new car with a new stereo system but we didn’t need it.

I look back through the years and can name many more things that I thought I needed. Yet, the things I thought I needed were all just wants to satisfy me temporarily. My wants changed with the days.

The message of Christmas is not a question of material needs but a reminder of the need of Jesus Christ. The entire theme of Christmas can be summed up in this verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

The Dutch theologian herman Bavink once wrote, “God, and God alone, is man’s highest good.” So God is the source of good and the sustainer of all good.

So the real things that sustain us, the things that satisfy the deepest parts of our souls, come from God.

The old prophet wrote in Malachi 2:2: “Set your heart to know God.” Those are words we all need at Christmas time. In the midst of all the activity, the comings and goings of the holidays, the shopping, the festivities and the functions, we must keep the focus in our minds that all any of us needs is to know God.

God fills the hungry soul and he fills it with good things. (Psalm 107:9) Further, in God’s presence there is fullness of joy, the utmost of joy. (Psalm 16:11)

December 25 comes and goes and has for centuries. But when the books of time are closed and no more days or years are counted, what will matter most? Will we recall the material gifts we received or will we find lasting fulfillment in a Savior?

Judy Brandon is a Clovis resident. Contact her at:

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