40acts: Ready to ActSample

Act 17: Fill a Need

Two days ago you wrote a list of needs you saw around you and committed to pray. One or two of them might have kept niggling away at you during the weekend. Whatever you’ve been praying about recently, it’s time to ask: what do you want me to do about it, Lord?

When we see the word need – on our TV screens after another charity announcement, or from a homeless person holding out a paper cup – it’s easy to fall into the world’s way of thinking. Need is constant. Need is draining. Need is pulling on my wallet when I have barely enough to make it through the month. How do I meet the need?

When the Bible uses the word need, behind it is a secure understanding of the endless wealth and resource of heaven. ‘God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them’ (Acts 4:33–34). 

But the Bible says ‘God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them’. What was the result? ‘There were no needy persons among them.’ This is what the Bible has in view when it talks about need. This is what we can draw on, today, as believers with the same God, the same covenant, the same rights as daughters and sons, co-heirs with the King of kings. It changes how we look at our needs list, and it changes what we reach for when we open our wallet.