Love Acceptance Worth Security

Every human being has from the time of birth four basic needs that instinctively need to be met. These needs are; we need to know we are loved. We need to know we are accepted. We need to feel worthy and we need to feel secure. You can remember these 4 needs by the acronym L.A.W.S.

As we accumulate experiences with family, friends, as well as every other interaction, we begin to develop beliefs about God, ourselves, and others. These interactions lead us to create our own unique strategies to get these needs met. We don’t know any better, we just know we have a deep desire to be loved, accepted, worthy and secure.

I think where these needs are the first most glaring is when we enter school. You’ve heard the term and most likely experienced “peer pressure”. This pressure revolves mostly around the need to be accepted. Some will do almost anything to get that need filled. Maybe you did. Maybe you still are.

When I personally think back on my experience, one sticks out in my mind. I’m standing in gym class with a group of my peers all in a straight line facing two other peers whose job it is to pick teams. The dreaded lineup. “Don’t pick me last, please don’t pick me last”. The more kids that are picked before me the more unacceptable I become. My acceptability is directly proportionate to when I am picked. My belief that I am not good enough blossoms and grows.

So what do I do? I have a choice. I could re-double my efforts work harder and be better so maybe next time I get picked sooner or I could live believing “I’m not good enough so what's the point”?

It doesn’t matter which choice you make, ultimately it will fail because we are from our very core designed to have these needs met by God. Well, what if we don’t know God? Then these strategies are all we have. But, if we know God we can and should depend on him to have these needs met.

Practical questions to ask yourself;

Where or who am I looking to fill my need for love? Spouse, friends, family

Where or who am I looking to fill my need for acceptance? Status, education, things

Where or who am I looking to fill my need for worth? Career, Serving others, things I do

Where or what am I looking to fill my need for security? Job, Money, having more things

If the answer to those questions is not Jesus and his finished work. Then you are filling leaky buckets. Never being able to keep them full, but always working to replenish them.

Paul figured out the secret to contentment. Philippians 4:11-13 Not that I speak from need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along with little, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Verse 13 is the verse we most often quote: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” For most, it is a declaration of the strength I have because of Christ. I’m strong in him. We are, but for Paul, this was his declaration of dependence on Christ. It’s our dependence on Jesus that brings us contentment.

2 Corinthians 3:5 verse 5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,

He is the one who provides for our most basic needs. Trust him, depend on him.