WHOLLY Significant
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Author Steve DeNeff has written a great book called “More Than Forgiveness”. I encourage you to look it up and find it and read it. I want to share some thoughts of his from the first chapter of his book, where he talks about how we all have a basic human needs: significance, security, innocence, intimacy, hope. And these five things, according to the DeNeff, were perverted by the fall of humankind in the Garden of Eden, but by the cross of Christ they are restored, wholly restored, through what Jesus did for us.
Our Need to Be Known
So let's talk about these five different needs and how God restores them. The first is significance. Everybody in life needs to know that they matter. There's an instinctive human belief that we were born to matter. And so deep is this desire in all of us that Viktor Frankl, the Swiss therapist, noted that it was more humiliating to be ignored by prison guards in Auschwitz than to have them beat you. Isn't that terrifying? That human beings long for recognition, even if it brings them pain rather than being ignored?
Our Lust for Power
But because of our fallen nature as human beings, we tend to distort this need for significance, and we seek power. We seek to put ourselves up and put others down. We seek to be more important than the next person. We seek power and we seek to impress others to feed our pride.
Christ’s Solution is Humility
Jesus came to free us from these distortions by making us holy through his work on the cross. Instead, we find our dignity in humility. And DeNeff says this: “We still want to matter. But to whom we matter is less important. We will find as much meaning in small things as in great things. Our significance is not found in making ourselves too busy for menial tasks. It is grounded in the truth that we are loved by God, that he has taken up residence in us and that we are fulfilling our place in his plan. We want what we have and accept what we are given with grace. And so the best leader,” he says “reigns with a towel and not a scepter.”
Do you need to feel significant friends? You can find that significance not in more power in your life and not in doing things that impress others, but simply in knowing that you are loved by the Father, knowing that He - the God of the universe - cares for you. That gives you ultimate dignity and ultimate worth. I hope you know this and hold on to this today.
