The One Thing Needful

What is the one thing needful? We will come to this understanding when we can position ourselves and our possessions according to the Truth.

1. Positioning ourselves

We have a temporal life but an eternal spirit. Knowing this, we realize that this world is not our home. We will surely be easily discontented if we take this world as our home. A person on his far journey will not complain much when things are not the way he wishes it to be like, because it is not his home. But he knows he is a pilgrim, a passer-by, who only enjoys the good of the journey as the passing things but his mind is fixed on the hope of reaching home.

Secondly, we are not only strangers in this world but we are also living in the midst of great spiritual battle. If we are living with the mentality of a soldier in battle, we will not be demanding things as though it is the time of peace.

Positioning ourselves as a pilgrim and a soldier in relation to this temporal world, we will know the one thing needful. It is to care for our soul and eternal salvation. If we know the one thing needful, we will not be so easily shaken by the cares and difficulties of this life.

2. Positioning possessions

As the book of Ecclesiastes says, vanities of vanities, all are vanities. What profit hath a man of all his labor under the sun? One generation passes away and another comes, but the earth abides where it is. The sun rises and the sun falls, and hurries back to where it rises. All things are wearisome and man cannot understand it, the eye is not satisfied with seeing and the ear is not satisfied with hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun.

This is a profound revelation of the position of temporal world in relation to human beings. It speaks of the desperate state of humanity which keeps pursuing worldly things fulfill their empty hearts and end up in disappointment because the nature of the worldly things have not thus the capacity to fulfill them. This cycle repeats one generation after another but mankind forgets, never learns from history and commits the mistake all over again. So the state remains. What is the relationship between worldly things and human beings?

In themselves, all creatures are vanities. A right understanding of this will purge out a lot of vain lusts within our hearts.

The good of worldly things are not in themselves, but in as far as they have reference to God, the supreme Good of all. The good in creatures consists in the enjoyment of God in them, the honoring of God in them, and how they lead us to a deeper understanding of God’s goodness and mercy. In summary, they are meant to lead us to know God and enjoy God Himself. So if we can enjoy God, we have a true, unshakable and sanctified enjoyment which is not dependent on creatures. We enjoy God in creatures, not enjoy creatures in themselves. This enjoyment is in Truth, and we are set free when we enjoy life this way.

A carnal heart has not learnt this and will thus be perplexed when he loses his estate, but a godly heart rejoices in sufferings and losses when he can see that he still has as much of God as he had before.