Plymothian

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

²⁸ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

³⁰ Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Who Is Jesus?

we have seen in previous passages that the disciples were struggling to make sense of who Jesus is.  I have also had that problem.  I gave my heart to Jesus when I was 8.  It was in response to a question as to whether I was a Christian.  I suppose you could say at that point I became a disciple.  However, the cross of Jesus didn’t seem to change much.  Jesus himself was not an ever-present reality who changed everything.  He was an answer to a question about heaven and hell.  Heaven and hell were not connected to God necessarily.  Going to heaven or hell was like the difference between holidaying for eternity in a hotel in Florida or a shack in Death Valley.  Jesus provided a bus trip to the hotel and so I wanted to go.  I like palm trees, soft white sheets, and cold drinks by the pool.  However, Jesus was never a bus driver or a busboy.  He is something more.

The people of Jesus’ day had put Jesus in a prophetic category.  He was someone to them who would turn their country and their religion around.  It would be like England looking to the new Prince George to grow up and become a king who would clean up The Houses of Parliament and bring biblical faith back to the Church of England.  When George takes to the streets in 2033, the people will be there with him because he speaks truth and gives them the kind of things they always wanted.  However, Jesus doesn’t own the title of a social reformer.  Peter identifies him as Messiah and Jesus commends him for it.  A Messiah would be more than another prophet who reformed the government and religion.  A Messiah would revolutionise the world.  Peter had stumbled upon something bigger than he knew.  Like the moment when I knelt by my bed and asked Jesus into my heart, he had no idea what he was saying.  However, surrendering to the one in front of him would transform his life and the life of all the disciples with him.

Prayer

Jesus, I have a better idea of who you are than some, but all my knowledge is a finite drop in infinity.  You are more than my mind can cope with.  You are not another in the line of ordinary men empowered by God to bring reform.  You are God who brings revolution.  Continue the daily revolt against sin in my life.  Let me become who you would have me be.  More importantly, let me know more who you are.  Then let me live my life accordingly.

Questions

1. Who did people say Jesus was?
2. What would the crowds expect of Jesus?
3. What did Peter’s confession about Jesus mean?
4. Who was Jesus to you when you met him?
5. Who is he now?

¹¹ The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. ¹² He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” ¹³ Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.

¹⁴ The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. ¹⁵ “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”

¹⁶ They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”

¹⁷ Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? ¹⁸ Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? ¹⁹ When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”

“Twelve,” they replied.

²⁰ “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of piece all s did you pick up?”

They answered, “Seven.”

²¹ He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”

You Don’t Know How Much You Don’t Know

You have no idea how ignorant you are.  Neither do I.  Our thoughts and our perceptions are finite and we walk around in an infinite reality.  You are ignorant, blind, and confused.  Rather than get more of an idea of the important information you lack, like an upstart teenager, you try to hide that you know nothing from yourself and others.  It is a truly humble person who continuously examines themselves and acknowledges that they have not arrived.  It is a Christian discipline to examine ourselves and ask God to examine us and show us where we lack.  Without a wild perception of God’s holiness and our distance in comprehension, goodness, and ability from God we lack a reason to grow.  Our society lulls us to sleep with quiet assurances that you know enough already to be good.  You have been made right with God through Jesus’ death on the cross – you don’t drink, smoke, or chew or go with girls who do.  No, you have become a hypocrite whose proud mask hides the true face of deceit from you.  We don’t actually claim that we are without sin, but we have ceased to be recipients of God’s grace.  God’s riches are undeserved, but we go from an undeserving receptivity at the point of our conversion to a cold complacency years in.  We accept that we are ignorant with regard to our professions and we get degrees and doctorates to try and make us more qualified to accomplish more.  Of course, some like Richard Dawkins, think that competency in one area makes them an expert in all.  Others think that no matter how hard they study they never know enough to act.  In our ethical and moral growth we believe that all we need to know, we knew in Sunday School!

Spiritual growth occurs as we know our minds and we know the mind of Christ.  Spiritual pygmies occur when people stop growing in their faith and focus on the illusion of their self-sufficiency.  The disciples in the boat have a perception of themselves and of Jesus.  Unfortunately, although they are in the boat with the one who has worked two powerful miracles regarding provision, they still despair at their lack of provisions.  Jesus, the saddened teacher looks through the ages at those who he would develop into people of power and influence and shakes his head: “Do you still not understand?”  They are preoccupied with busy lives of soccer matches for children, birthday parties for friends, and entertainment that silences his voice.

Prayer

Dear Jesus, examine our hearts and minds.  Show us the next thing that we don’t understand and show us where we are deficient.  Thank you for covering our inadequacy with your grace.  Through grace take that inadequacy and use it as a continuous catalyst for growth.

Questions

1. Why do the disciples squabble?
2. What is their perception of Jesus?
3. What does Jesus want them to understand?
4. What have you recently understood about Jesus that caused recent growth?
5. Why do many Christians persist in an immature state or just cease growing after a number of years?

During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ² “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. ³ If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”

⁴ His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”

⁵ “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied.

⁶ He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. ⁷ They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. ⁸ The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ⁹ About four thousand were present. After he had sent them away, ¹⁰ he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

Desperately Hungry

Jesus was with the Gentiles a little longer.  During those Gentile days he had a crowd gather around him to hear his teaching and they stay with him in a remote region even when the food runs out.  Jesus takes the opportunity to show his provision again, but his disciples have not yet understood his ability to provide.  This story may just emphasize that God provides in Jesus every provision that we need.  However, it may emphasize that Jesus’ provision is for everyone, Gentiles as well as Jews.  7 is a number of completion in Jewish thought.  Also, N.T. Wright tells us that the number 70 was used to represent Gentiles.  The wilderness may be emphasized to show need, but it may be that this is like God’s provision for the people of Israel as they wandered in the desert in Exodus.

The question then rises, are you following Jesus so fervently that you are desperately hungry for his provision.  In affect we are all desperately hungry, but many of us try and satiate our hunger with chocolate, television, or sex.  This just leads to dissatisfaction and an increased hunger.  Playing computer games to satisfy our hunger for more, is like drinking salt water to satiate our thirst.  We need to satisfy our needs by developing a relationship with Jesus.  We develop that relationship by following hi wherever he leads and listening to his teaching.  We let that relationship wane by keeping ourselves busy and working too hard.

Prayer

Let our lack of satisfaction lead us deeper into our relationship with you.  Help us to keep asking, seeking, and knocking on doors until our relationship flourishes.

Questions

1. What details set this story apart from the feeding of the 5,000?
2. Do you think this story emphasizes Jesus’ care for Gentiles?
3. How are the disciples changed by this experience do you think?
4. Are you following Jesus so intently that the events of your life around you are secondary?
5. How can you go to Jesus about something where you need his provision?

³¹ Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.^{[h] 32} There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.

³³ After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. ³⁴ He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). ³⁵ At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

³⁶ Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. ³⁷ People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Desperate Hearted Friends

Jesus stays in a non-Jewish context.  He is probably still laying low after the decapitation of John the Baptist, but he is unable to stay hidden.  His heart of compassion and his power as a bringer of life and health are impossible to hide.  However, those who are singing his praises at this time are not Jewish.  The disciples are hidden from the text and we now see Jesus’ response to some desperate hearted friends.  A man is brought who can not speak for himself and who can not hear what Jesus might say to him.  However, Jesus takes him to the side and graphically lays out what he will do.

Why does Jesus sigh?  It could be that he is tired from the constant pursuit of those who want him to heal.  However, I believe it is from a weight of sadness that touches his heart when he sees the ravages that sin has on a person as it infects our world.  The passion of relief for the man and his friends is apparent as they can not keep quiet.  This is an intentional contrast with the silent beginnings.  Maybe it is a contrast with the disciples who are probably present, but who don’t see and who don’t speak because they do not have ears to hear clearly yet.

We should, like Jesus, have compassion on those who suffer.  However, we must be aware that we are living with poor sight and poor words.  Like the friends we must passionately bring each other to the only one who can heal, and like the afflicted man we must accept what Jesus is going to do to and through us.  When you see the desperate condition of those around you, where do you take them?  Do you offer them a cup of tea?  Do you take them to the doctor?  That would be a start.  However, we need to see how the desperation of our plight should lead us to Jesus.

Prayer

A lot of the time I just hope that I can keep myself positive.  I wish to appear together and to remain shallow enough to believe it.  However, when I talk to most people on an authentic level we have issues that go deeper than we know.  Physical healing is something we all seek out.  Emotional healing is becoming more acceptable.  Your spiritual healing should under-gird everything.  Help me to be healed and find joy and to bring that true joy to others.

Questions

1. Where is Jesus?
2. What word describes the way the deaf-mute’s friends asked Jesus?
3. Why would Jesus want to keep this healing quiet?
4. How are you like the man in the passage who needs healing?
5. How are you like the friends of the man who needs healing?

²⁴ Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.^[g] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. ²⁵ In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. ²⁶ The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

²⁷ “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

²⁸ “Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²⁹ Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

³⁰ She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Desperate Hearted Woman

This woman in this passage is desperate.  We must see, though, who she is.  She is Greek by culture.  This means that she is probably pagan.  She allows for many gods and godesses.  She is certainly not familiar with the rules that Jewish people followed in order to show themselves as set apart, holy, pure in God’s eyes.  Secondly, she is from Tyre.  She is a Syro-Phoenecian.  Tyre and Sidon were the principle cities in a wealthy trading nation called Phoenecia.  They had technologically developed ships and supplied their needs by taking the supplies from their hinterland.  This hinterland was shared with Galilee.  In other words, powerful Tyre was an economic rival with Jesus’ home land and took all their supplies when ever they could.  There was hatred between the Jews and Syro-Phoenecians and it would seem that the enmity was with good cause.  In effect, this woman’s nation oppressed Jesus’ people and scoffed at God.  It is a woman from this background who then comes to Jesus and begs him to heal her daughter.  On top of the racial and cultural obstacles to Jesus’ help, she was also a woman.

It was something for her to do this.  She had to go to a man and ask of him something.  She had to go to a Jew who would probably look down on her for her pagan religion and elitism.  She did it anyway.  She was courageous and her desperate heart more truly reflected the passionate pursuit of a disciple than many of Jesus’ disciples.  She got the reply that she probably anticipated.  Jesus told her a riddle that showed her relative status in the eyes of the Jewish majority, but then she shows the nature of her heart.  She is humble and faithful.  She is not resentful, bitter, and resistant.  Most of all, she is not proud.  Call her a dog, if you like, she will own it.  Call her anything you want, but don’t leave her child with a demon.  After this heart is revealed, Jesus reveals his.  He commends this heart for its desperate pursuit of him.  We have no account that she became a Jew, a monotheist, or that she moved house.  She humbly accepted Jesus’ touch on her household and we can see her house would never be the same.

Jesus accepts us with our flaws.  We just need to see how Jesus continually meets the desperate condition of our heart and heals us moment by moment.  He has no prejudice about who will come to him.  There are no preconditions about whether we come from polytheism, pluralism, poverty or riches.  We all come in the same condition.  We are desperate and Jesus may test our understanding of that.  Just how desperate are you?  Is faith in Jesus just a comfortable addition to your life?  Or do you realise that you are constructing a nightmare and wedded to failure?  Come to Jesus he will wipe away the nightmares and turn failures into success.  However, abide in his grace or pride and complacency will calcify your heart and the cross that once spanned such a great divide will seem to shrink in your estimation.

Prayer

Jesus, I am desperate.  My heart is divided, but you can make it whole.  I want so many things that I believe will satisfy me, give me an advantage, or keep me safe.  Often I grasp at things without even knowing why.  Then I lack the courage to pursue you and your calling because I think that it is all about me and my efforts.  Let me just fall face down in the dust – I hesitate to pray for you to break me.  I anticipate that it will be painful and not sweet.  I know in my head that the desperate situation of the Syro-Phoenician woman led to a deeper connection with you.  However, I do not want my children hurt, my wife taken, or my house burned just to show me that I need you more.  It is hard for me to pray for you to do whatever it takes to give me more of yourself.  It seems so often that is a prayer where our misguided loyalties are revealed to us through painful events.  Yet not my will …

Questions

1. Where has Jesus’ gone?
2. Why does Jesus respond to the woman this way?
3. What does her persistence reveal?
4. How has Jesus been harsh with you?
5. How did you push on to something deeper because Jesus hid his heart?

¹⁴ Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. ¹⁵ Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” ^[16] [f]

¹⁷ After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. ¹⁸ “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? ¹⁹ For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

²⁰ He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. ²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Desperate Heart

Jesus reveals what he is saying to his disciples and it actually waxes a little lavatorial.  The Bible deals with all aspects of life, so being lavatorial has to happen at some time.  The Pharisees, according to the NIV Application Commentary, had a tradition that although urination and defecation were dirty they were not ritually unclean.  The situation that the Pharisees may have been addressing was when a person wipes their bottom (or washes it) after they have gone to the bathroom.  If going to the bathroom made you ritually unclean, people would be unclean a number of times during the day and have to complete complicated ritual purification rituals.  Jesus may be poking fun at the Pharisees who believed you had to be very careful about how you washed your hands to make sure food went into your mouth clean, but when it came out it was all ceremonially clean whether you washed your hands or not.  Jesus points out that it is the heart that matters.

Our modern movies often agree that it is the heart that matters.  They teach, through their stories, that if you are authentic and holistic then you are basically good.  Jesus actually lists all kinds of evil, right down to stupidity, that all people share at some point.  Then he leaves people with a great equalizer.  The waste speech coming out of our mouths is proof of a heart condition that is corrupt.  Forget trying to soften the blow by keeping external purity laws.

Some of the churches I have been involved in have developed a confidence that they have maintained some kind of purity higher than others because of their practices.  For one church it might be covering their heads, for another church it would be speaking in tongues, for yet another it would be their hospitality.  Because they practiced some hospitality, spirituality or head-wear they masked the fact that they were continuously recipients of grace like those they judged.  We could argue they needed more grace to cover their self-righteousness.  Many Christians lose the grasp on the constant need of their heart for work and repair because they go from seeing themselves as broken and in need of Christ to fixed.  They go from healing themselves to only healing others.  Those who are not adept at receiving a deepening healing of their own sin become inept at healing the hurt in others.

Prayer

Jesus, may your cross be magnified in my life as I see it continuously covering the heart of darkness that is within me.  I am happy and grateful because I am worse than even I am aware.  You reach in deeper each day and cleanse the stream as my words flow from what is naturally a corrupt source and what is supernaturally redeemed each moment.  The world of Ancient Israel justified itself by doing good works and maintaining outward appearances.  The world of modern America looks like it has its own set of works-righteousness.  People think they are good because they recycle, work hard, and are not a jerk to others.  Help us to see that our petty attempts at holiness only reveal more our desperate condition.

Questions

1. How had the Pharisees challenged Jesus?
2. If the Pharisees believed that poop was ritually clean, how does that help us with this passage?
3. How does Jesus change our reading of the Old Testament ritual purity laws?
4. How do you try harder to clean your act up for family members, work, or church?
5. How would church be different if you were humbly authentic about the condition of your heart and your constant dependency on Jesus?

⁴⁵ Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. ⁴⁶ After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

⁴⁷ Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. ⁴⁸ He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, ⁴⁹ but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, ⁵⁰ because they all saw him and were terrified.

Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” ⁵¹ Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, ⁵² for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.

⁵³ When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. ⁵⁴ As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. ⁵⁵ They ran throughout that whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶ And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

Ghost On the Water

The disciples head out for Bethsaida and end up in Gennesaret.  They are rerouted by a storm and their encounter with Jesus.  They struggle with the winds and the waves.  The struggle here would be symbolic of chaotic forces that work against the shalom of Creation.  The shalom of Creation is the blueprint of peace and harmony that God brings by his presence.  Jesus’ walking on the water is not a cool trick for someone who forgets his surfboard, it is a revelation to the disciples of the glory of God.  Whilst in the storm, not in peril but in struggle, God is with them in the person of Jesus Christ.

Going through school, working a job, raising a family may all feel at times like rowing into a head wind.  However, who comes with us into the storm?  Who walks through the buffeting waves unphased?  Jesus very presence soothes the breakers, but does it calm our fears?  The disciples were afraid because they couldn’t comprehend the transcendent nature of the one who walked with them.  They didn’t understand that the God who provides was walking with them.  Sometimes, when God opens us up to the fact that we still wrestle with a chaotic core of sin and that he is holy and completely without flaw or error, we are left on our faces wondering how we are allowed to speak to God or take our next breath.

If we are walking in the Spirit, with Jesus, we will be transformed.

Prayer

Jesus, walk with me.  Walk with me and change me in ways that I need to be changed.  Let me not forget about the loaves, the storms, the crucifixion.  Help me not to be brought up short those times when your hand is obvious.  Let me know more fully that in all life’s storms you are walking beside me and loving me.  Help me to receive that love and to be transformed by your presence.

Questions

1. Why did Jesus embrace solitude?
2. What miracles does Jesus perform?
3. How do these miracles reveal Jesus’ identity?
4. How will you embrace solitude in the next few months?
5. How is Jesus revealing he is God in your storms?

³⁰ The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. ³¹ Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

³² So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. ³³ But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. ³⁴ When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

³⁵ By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. ³⁶ Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

³⁷ But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages^[e]! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

³⁸ “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”

When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”

³⁹ Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. ⁴¹ Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. ⁴² They all ate and were satisfied, ⁴³ and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. ⁴⁴ The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

All four gospels have an account of Jesus feeding the five thousand men.  The disciples have been transformed to apostles.  This means that they are on mission, sent by Jesus.  Their mission, so Matthew tells us (Matthew 10), involved going to Israel first and then to the rest of the world some time in the future.  They were to be agents who showed how God was rescuing the people and their land through Jesus.  They did well in some cases, but in other cases Jesus had to broaden their horizons.  That is what Jesus does here, he expands their horizons by revealing how much more he can provide than all that they would ask for.

Jesus tests the disciples and expands their horizons of faith, as he often does with us.  In this story, though, Jesus provides for a nation.  The twelve baskets are associated with the bountiful supply that Jesus can provide for a chosen nation that will turn to him.  Although no nation is chosen in the way Israel was in the Old Testament, any nation that adopts God’s laws, and more importantly forms a relationship with him, is going to work more in harmony with the way the world was designed.  The godly principles of hard work and sacrifice that America once adopted made them great.  Now they are moving to a time of self-satisfied entitlement and moral decay, technology and science can not save a nation like America from the course it has chosen.  It seems right to a person to make choices that will satisfy self, but, like the five thousand, our deepest needs can only be met in another and in the service of others.  Jesus is the only one who can heal us at our deepest level because he is the only one that can fill us and lead us into the purpose for which we were created.

Prayer

Like the disciples, I am amazed by this miracle.  I know that I am on mission and that I have a purpose in the world, but I lack faith to step out and expect you to do the miraculous.  I am thankful for those times when I have stepped out in faith and found you to be dependable.  I thank you for the way that you use a person who is inadequate for the task and fill them with your infinite adequacy.  Help us not to try harder, but to see what resources you have provided and to give them back to you.

Questions

1. How does this passage train the disciples to be missionaries?
2. What was Jesus teaching about Israel in particular?
3. Why didn’t Israel turn to Jesus if he could provide their needs?
4. Why do we try and take care of our needs without Jesus?
5. What is your deepest need that you are aware of at the moment?