By Sandy Mayle
Have you ever worked as a salesperson, perhaps in a furniture or department store? Did you ever sell to people on commission?
The owner of one such store used to gather his salespeople together every Monday morning to give them a pep talk and teach a few sales techniques. One morning he instructed them like this: “When a customer enters the store, greet them and ask, ‘What do you need today?’ Don’t ask, ‘What do you want?’ because that suggests what they’re looking for isn’t really necessary. Say, ‘What do you need,’ so that they feel an urgency to buy.”
In Revelation 3, Jesus addressed the church in Laodicea. The members of the church didn’t think they needed anything. “We are rich,” they said. “We have everything we want and are in need of nothing.”
“Oh, but you are in need!” Jesus was saying. But unlike the store owner, Jesus wasn’t using a sales technique. Jesus knew that what he offered was what the Laodiceans truly needed. “You are walking in here poor and blind and naked,” he told them, “and you don’t even realize it! You need to buy from me the gold of refined faith. You need to walk out of here dressed in the white clothing of holiness. You need to let me apply the eye ointment that restores spiritual sight.”
Jesus asks each of us today, “What do you need?”
And some of us might answer, “I don’t need anything. I’ve got what I want. I’m rich!”
And in many ways, many of us are. We are so blessed. But sometimes we turn a blind eye to the poverty of our lives. Today might be a good time to enter the storehouse of the Lord. To admit our inner poverty and his riches. To trust he will fill our needs, perhaps even satisfy longings we didn’t know we had. Jesus has it all—forgiveness for our sins, clothing for our shame, healing for our shortsightedness, gold for our bankrupt hearts. But we have to come to Jesus. And we have to admit our lack.
As we come to the table of the Lord, we come to what we truly need the most—to the only Savior, Sanctifier, Lord, and Giver of Eternal Life. Let’s celebrate him today.
Sandy Mayle is a freelance writer who lives in Erie, Pennsylvania.
I like this and will be using it this Sunday.