Adapted from The Hospitality of Need by Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton (© 2025). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.

Need is not a sin, just as much as a broken leg or a torn shirt is not inherently evil. Jesus Himself referred to need as a tool in John 9 when the crowd asked Him about a blind man.

“Who sinned here?” they asked Jesus. “This man or his parents, that he is blind?”

“Neither,” He replied. “But so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Need itself wasn’t a result of the fall but fell along with the rest of creation when sin entered the world. It was meant to be yet another beautiful picture of God’s love for us. And while it now causes pain and is associated with hardship, need can still point us back to Him in His sovereignty and grace.

Jesus had needs as well. This is a concept many of us are probably hesitant to entertain. By definition, God does not need anything. He is the Alpha and Omega. But when Jesus came as a man, He lowered Himself and put on our sense of need like a coat, a part of the flesh that He accepted to wear. At the beginning of his gospel account, John says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) An inherent trait of “flesh” is need, no way around that.

But how can asking to be served be a service to others? This is the question we ask of Jesus, but also that we ask of ourselves as reset with our own present needs. And as with everything, we find our answer in Jesus, because this is what makes an exchange between Jesus and a Samaritan woman, along with a woman washing His feet and with His disciples feeding Him after His resurrection, so fascinating. In these encounters, instead of serving others, Jesus asked to be served; and by inviting these precious people into His need, He healed them. His every need was an opportunity, an open door for our lost and hurting world to step through with Him into salvation.

Need is a sermon that God purposed at the beginning of time, when He first commanded waters, shaped dirt, and grew fruit for food. In His sovereignty, He fashioned our needs to point us to Him. The Word who spoke everything into being stooped down to be born unto us and buried by us; to be thirsty with us, dusty, hungry. And by these needs, He quenched the thirst of the world, washed it clean, and offered it the Bread of Life.

The root of our need is for the presence of God. Just as He set up ecosystems for His creation to thrive, these and our other needs are actually just subsidiary reflections of our deeply built-in reliance on Him. This need—the big one—was met organically early on in the garden. But with the fall came a separation, a severing of that communion and the need being naturally met in such a concrete way. The story of all creation since then has been to get back there, to that ultimate need being met by God with us, which Jesus came to make possible again. And our more finite needs—the weights and worries of the world—point us to that ultimate need and the One who can meet it. They did before the fall, by design, and they do so now, much to Satan’s chagrin.

So, if our needs point us to God, why can’t they point others to Him as well? Every need points us back to God’s love and our great need for Him, and one of those “sub-needs” that God imbued us with is our need for one another. It only stands to reason, then, that our need for one another can not only point us to Him, it can point others to Him as well.

Too often, our needs distract us or deter us from hospitality, but they should actually be our greatest tool to accomplish it. They should open us up to profound opportunity. Our needs drop us into a tunnel vision, either toward self-pity or glorious light. If we choose the latter, it’s a sight unlike any other to see.

A few years ago, some friends and I were hiking part of the Great Wall of China. A lot of the wall has been restored and reinforced for the safety of its millions of tourists visiting each year. But there are some areas that have not yet been worked on, and these areas are barricaded by a short wall and a sign discouraging entry. As you can imagine, that “discouragement” acted as more of a challenge and encouragement to our group of thirty-something-year-old guys looking for adventure. We climbed over the barricade and set out to traverse a crumbling wall that had been built around the time of Jesus.

It was a treacherous climb. My friends carried me in a backpack and held onto each other for stability as we, at times, navigated two-foot-wide boulders with 100-foot drop-offs on either side. Sweat soaked our shirts, and blisters covered our feet and hands as we gasped for breath in the ever-thinning air with every step upward. And we did all of this because Tom, the most ornery member of our team, had run ahead earlier and come back to report. It would be a lot of work, uncomfortable, even dangerous, but he said this push to our limits would prove worthwhile. And it did. We reached a plateau and looked out over a daunting world. Nowhere else on earth could give you this grand a view. Miles of rolling, roaring, ruling green masses of land, forest, and rock, as far as the eye could see, and we were looking down on all of it.

As our needs lead us into the presence of our Lord, as He always intended, let us bring others with us by inviting them into those very needs. By divine design, He is calling us back to Himself, and it’s where we’re all longing to be, anyway. We have the road to get there; we know the way and have traveled it. We are traveling it. It’s unconventional and often uncomfortable, but the view will prove even more worthwhile than the Great Wall of China.

Come and join me in weakness, vulnerability, and need, “so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:3b) I want you to see the wonderful glory of God that I get to see from here.