In this Lesson You Will Study:

• What Is Your Greatest Need?
• How Does Jesus Meet Your Greatest Need?
• Is Jesus Your Savior?
• What About Your Other Needs?

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST NEED?

Is It for Your Body or Soul?

The person who is lost in a desert or jungle, or who is adrift on a raft in the ocean, needs to be found and rescued. The starving man needs food; the condemned prisoner needs pardon. The person who has been poisoned needs an antidote.

Although these needs are vital, you have an even greater one. You are much more than a body. You have a spiritual nature, a soul. Your soul is the spring of real life in you. Without God, though, it is ruined. You are like a person dying of thirst. Life and health for your soul are more important than the most urgent need of your body.

Romans 5:12. Sin came into the world through one man [Adam, the first human being], and his sin brought death with it. As a result, death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

Your Greatest Need Is a Savior

The Bible teaches us that man’s soul is lost, starving, deathly sick, and condemned to die. Man needs a Savior to find, feed, cure, and pardon him. A Savior is your greatest need because you can’t save yourself.

• Having Christian parents won’t save you.
• Being a church member won’t save you.
• Trying to be good won’t save you.
• Without a Savior, you can’t be saved.

How Does Jesus Meet Your Greatest Need?

Jesus Is the Savior God Has Sent for You

God sent His Son to find, feed, and cure your sick, starving soul that was lost in sin. He became a man so that He could die in your place and give you a pardon. His name is Jesus, which means Savior. Only He can save you.

Jesus Shows You the Truth and the Way Satan has blinded our minds with error and unbelief. We have wandered away from God and lost our way. The devil tries to make us doubt God’s Word, power, wisdom, goodness, and love. Some people even doubt that there is a God.

2 Corinthians 4:4 – They do not believe, because their minds have been kept in the dark by the evil god of this world.

Satan deceives many people with false religions. Some pray to spirits or images.

Romans 1:23 – Instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.

Satan lies to us about what is good for us and what is right or wrong. We go down the wrong road looking for happiness and find death instead.

Jesus, unlike Satan, came to find us and lead us back to God, to happiness, and eternal life. In Him and His teaching you will learn the truth and be free from unbelief and error.

Jesus Cures the Deadly Sin of Your Heart

You have already learned that sin is disobeying God’s orders. So the greatest sin of all would be to disobey God’s most important command, wouldn’t it? Jesus told us which one this is.

Matthew 22:37-39 – ”Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

We have all broken God’s two most important commandments. Selfishness, the root of all sins, has filled our hearts and smothered out love. We have repaid God’s love with indifference and ingratitude. We think much more of ourselves than we do of God or of others. What sinners we are! Our self-centered hearts cause conflict and problems between individuals and among nations. Sin in the heart produces a sinful world.

2 Timothy 3:2-4 – People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God.

Jesus came to cure you of sin and fill you with God’s love.

1 John 1:9, 7 – But if we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise and do what is right: he will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing. But if we live in the light . . . we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.

Romans 5:5 – God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Breaks the Power of Sin and Satan Sin has weakened our willpower until we cannot do what we know we should do.

John 8:34 – Everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

Romans 7:14, 15, 18 – I am . . . a slave to sin. . . . I don’t do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. . . . For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it.

Jesus breaks the chains of sin and delivers from bad habits. He delivers us from uncontrolled anger, immorality, cheating, stealing, and lying ; He frees us from harmful addictions such as to alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and gambling. He breaks the power of evil spirits and Satan.

Jesus Took Your Place—Secured Your Pardon Because God is just, He cannot ignore sin. Death is God’s punishment for sin as well as the result of sin. But God loved you so much that He sent His Son to die in your place. When Jesus died, it was as if you had died. Because He rose again and went to heaven, so can you.

Peter 2:24 – Christ himself carried our sins in his body to the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness.

Galatians 2:19, 20 – So far as the Law is concerned, however, I am dead—killed by the Law itself—in order that I might live for God. I have been put to death with Christ on his cross, so that it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.

When you accept Jesus as your Savior, you accept His death as your death, and His life as your life. In that very minute you become a child of God. Sin once separated you from God, but through Jesus you have pardon, new life, and fellowship with God, as if you had never sinned.

Is Jesus Your Savior?

It Is Up to You to Decide

Jesus is willing to be your Savior, but He won’t force you to accept Him.

Now Is the Time to Accept Him

If you haven’t yet accepted Jesus as your Savior, do it now. Now is the best time. Later might be too late. Besides, you want to enjoy every day possible of this wonderful new life in Him. He is knocking at the door of your heart today; let Him in.

Revelation 3:20. Listen! I stand at the door and knock.

Hebrews 3:15. If you hear God’s voice today, do not be stubborn.

2 Corinthians 6:2. Listen! This is the hour to receive God’s favor, today is the day to be saved.

What About Your Other Needs?

Your Father Cares for You

Matthew 6:31-33. So do not start worrying: “Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?” Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. Instead be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things.

Talk With God Every Day About Your Needs

Philippians 4:6. Don’t worry about anything, but in all your prayers ask God for what you need, always asking him with a thankful heart.

Jesus Will Be Your Healer

He still heals the sick in answer to prayer.

Acts 10:38. Jesus . . . went everywhere . . . healing.

Hebrews 13:8. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.