You may have heard it said, “God gives us what we need, not what we want.” It is sometimes applied to life in general, and it is often applied to prayer. This religious platitude is in direct contradiction to the word of God. It stands especially against the teachings of Jesus on prayer. It is an excuse for unbelief. It is a self-pardon for failure. Whatever you end up having, you can tell yourself that it is what you need. If you comfort yourself this way, you will never have to admit your shortcoming. You will never have to admit that you are not the spiritual giant you think you are after all. You will never have to say, “God did not answer my prayer because of my unbelief. But I will not make excuses, and I will not give up. I will repent of my lack of faith, and I will revisit the word of God and grow in faith. Then I will come back and receive what I want from God.”

The idea of need is absurd by itself. You can always need less. In fact, need is impossible to define on its own. You never absolutely need anything that you ask for in prayer. You want a steak, but you think you only need bread, so you ask for bread. If you have bread, you do not need butter. But if the purpose is to survive, you can eat tree roots. You can eat trash. You can eat animal excrements. So you do not need bread after all. Do you need to survive in the first place? If you are a Christian, then even if you starve to death, God will accept you into heaven. So pull your head back out of the dog toilet and just die. But who says you need to go to heaven? Why not burn in hell? There is nothing contradictory or unintelligible about it. Millions of people burn in hell. But you see, you do not want to burn in hell. You want to go to heaven, and that is why you need Jesus Christ. Well, I do not want to eat trash either, and I do not want to eat only bread. Therefore, I need the steak.

Need is relative. Need has no meaning without a definite point of reference. No one really needs anything — unless it is to get what they want. When people define need, they define it by what they want. If they need little, it is because they want little, or because they only dare to want little. This desire is often unspoken, but it is easily discovered once we talk about it, because inevitably the need is to satisfy what they want to achieve. Perhaps their desire has a range, and need is defined by the minimum that satisfies what they desire, but the need is still defined by the desire. When we force a dichotomy between need and want, need loses its meaning. Need is relative to something, some desired outcome or desired standard. Need cannot stand by itself. Since need cannot stand by itself, it is meaningless to say that God gives us what we need and not what we want, because this would just mean that he gives the minimum of what is desired. This limitation becomes meaningless if we increase the desire so that the minimum also becomes greater.

If I want to buy a house, then I will need hundreds of thousands of dollars. But if I want to buy a mansion, then I will need millions of dollars. You say, “But you do not need a mansion.” But I do, I really do. There are some people I want to spite, and I need a mansion to do it. On the other hand, you do not even need to rent a room. Many people are homeless. They survive, assuming any of us need to survive in the first place. You do not need anything. However, what I really want is to build a space stadium so we can have church on the moon. Depending on how spectacular I want to make the place, that could cost me fifty to three hundred billion dollars. So I need fifty billion dollars, because that is the minimum. You say, “But you do not need to build a space stadium. We can have church on the earth.” You do not need dinner on the table either. You can have dinner on the field eating grass with the cows. You do not need anything.

However, to define need as the minimum of what we desire is still silly. The Bible says that God will do more than what we ask or imagine. Of course God gives us what we need. The Bible sometimes uses the idea, but it does not use the idea of need to minimize what we receive from God. If I desire to buy lunch and God gives me ten million dollars for that one meal, then of course he has given me what I need, because I only need the ten dollars to achieve my desire. There is nothing inherent in the idea of need to limit what I receive to ten dollars in this context. Twenty dollars would meet my need. Twenty trillion dollars would meet my need. There is nothing in the idea of need to restrict it to a minimum of a certain reference point. This is just another way of saying that it means nothing to say that God gives us what we need, not what we want. Indeed, the Bible says that God will meet our needs, not according to our standards, but according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. A poor man might give you twenty dollars, if even that, to buy a pair of shoes at a bargain outlet. A born multi-trillionaire might give you several thousand dollars to make you a custom pair, because he does not know anything else. And to him, that amount means that shoes are free.

We are exploring from various perspectives how meaningless the idea of need is. And if need means nothing to us, it means even less to God. This also answers a possible challenge to what we have considered to this point. That is, if need is defined by something else, like desire, perhaps it is not defined by our desire, but by God’s desire for us. In other words, God gives us what we need as defined by his desire for us. And so we do not receive what we ask in prayer because God thinks we need something different.

From the biblical perspective, this challenge is answered by what we considered above, that is, God meets our needs according to his riches, not according to our needs. Moreover, when Paul said this, he was referring to needs that his readers were aware of; in fact, he was specifically referring to money (Philippians 4:15-19). In other words, God gives us money according to how much money he has, not according to how much money we need. The point is that we cannot say that God is the one who defines our needs in a way that we do not understand, or that we would understand only by hindsight. The platitude would make us think that we might have a need or desire, but when we pray about it and do not receive what we ask, it is because God understands that our need is something else, and he gives us what he thinks we need instead. What Paul said would disprove this, since he referred to our needs as something that we would continuously grasp both in the present and in the future, and he said that God would meet those needs.

On the conceptual level, the ambiguity is built into the idea of need itself. God himself would face the same problem. Why does he think that you need a certain thing, or why does he think that you need this much of it? He would still define need according to his desire. And we know what God has decided because he tells us in his word. So it is not something that is unknown. Thus if God decides what we need, the platitude remains meaningless because we know what God has decided. He tells us in the Scriptures. If we turn to the word of God to define what God wants for us, then this platitude is destroyed, because it cannot explain unexpected disappointments and unexpected failures in prayer as it is intended to do. Since we know what God has said, everything would be expected. But then, why should we preserve the idea of need at all? If what God desires and what we need become the same thing (in this context, it is what we need because of what he desires for us), then the platitude would mean that God gives us what he desires for us, not what we desire for ourselves. So it is all about desire, and need becomes irrelevant again. Moreover, recall that a need places no restriction on what meets that need. If God thinks I need ten dollars for lunch, he can still give me ten trillion dollars. That meets the need very well. Need is meaningless.

In any case, the biblical teaching is not that God will define our need according to his desire for us, so that we might not receive what we ask. To repeat, Paul told the Philippians that God would meet their needs, and in context, these were needs that they knew, and needs that were defined according to their desire, their perception about their lives. This means that the platitude cannot explain failed expectations, since we know what our expectations ought to be. Moreover, if we say that God gives us what he desires for us and not what we desire for ourselves, this does not automatically mean that we would receive something less or something different from what we pray for. Even if it is God who defines how much we ought to receive from him (in our terms, if it is God who defines how much we need according to his desire for us), the Bible indicates that we would receive more than what we ask or imagine. We will have more to say about this later.

What am I doing? I am showing you that the platitude is meaningless no matter how we look at it. Even if we overthink it and make room for it from every angle, it will not work. By itself, need is meaningless. You never really need anything. And this is why the platitude — “God gives us what we need, not what we want” — prepares us to get nothing. It is said by people who get nothing from God, but who feel self-righteous about it. People who are dripping with healing and prosperity, with holiness and revelation, with spiritual fruit and miraculous power, tend not to say something like this. They tend to encourage others to have faith and make progress. Then we have shown that even if we define need by desire, as we should, the platitude still fails to be meaningful regardless of whose desire we use to define our need.

The platitude is worse than useless. It is evil. Imagine if your son has terminal illness. Although you pray for his healing, he dies. Then someone says to you, “God gives you what you need, not what you want.” This man mocks your son right in front of you. You do not need your son. Your son is unnecessary. What about your son? Apparently he did not need his own life either. But what if he wanted to live? Then he needed healing after all, didn’t he? Next, you pray for your wife’s salvation, but your wife dies without believing in Christ, and now she burns in hell. This same fellow says to you, “God gives you what you need, not what you want.” You feel that you need to punch this guy in the face. You see, you think you need to, because you want to. He mocks your wife’s damnation and suffering. So you do not need your wife to go to heaven. She can burn in hell just fine. But is it fine for her? What if she did not want to burn in hell? Then she needed to know Jesus Christ, didn’t she? The platitude spawns from a faithless, cruel, and evil theology. This is paganism. It is not the teaching of Jesus. It is not the Christian faith.

Why do you want food for your children so that they do not starve to death? It is not because they need food. They do not need anything. They can starve to death. What is the problem? The problem is you — you do not want it to happen. So you ask for what you want, not what you need. You work hard to earn enough to feed your children, because it is what you want, not what you need. You need it only because you want it. It is because you want this outcome that you need the money and the food. But then, you also want them to wear clothes and attend school! You monster! When will you be satisfied? Do you need any of this? Do they? No one needs any of this. But you want all of it and so much more. You are insistent on your desires. In theology, people often call that greed. I mean the Buddhist theology that seemingly a majority of Christians espouse.

Contentment and desire are not mutually exclusive. You can be content with life, but want more out of life. Contentment means that you are happy now even while you reach for more. I am content in Christ, but that does not mean I no longer desire progress in faith. I continue to reach for more, but I am not in agony in the meantime. I am happy now, and I will be happier later. This is true in other aspects of life. You can be content because you have food, clothing, and shelter, and you ought to be content. But in this state of contentment, you continue to reach for more. Contentment makes you less vulnerable to temptations, and ambition makes you less vulnerable to stagnation.

At the Bethesda pool, there was a multitude of invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed (John 5). None of them needed anything. They could remain with their infirmities. They could suffer their limitations and degrading existence until they died. However, if the point of reference was their desire, then everybody there needed healing. All of them needed help. Jesus approached a man and asked him, “Do you want to be healed?” He did not ask the man, “Do you need to be healed?” He did not need to be healed, unless he wanted to be healed.

God does not ask you today, “Do you need my help? Do you need my grace? Do you need my power and wisdom?” You could answer no. You could rot in your problems. You could suffer depression and sickness. You can drown in debt. You can be bound by sin. You can even burn in hell — if you want. You do not need anything from God, that is, unless you want to be saved, unless you want to be healed, unless you want to win in life. So God is asking you, “Do you want my help? Do you want my grace? Do you want my power and wisdom?” He will give you what you want, not what you need.

Two blind men called out to Jesus, and he asked them, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Matthew 20:32). Certainly, they did not need healing. They had survived all this time as blind men. And they did not really need to survive in the first place. They survived until this time because they wanted to survive. Now they needed healing, only because they wanted healing. Do you see the truth? The doctrine against desire in faith and prayer is a scam doctrine that makes nonsense out of our walk with God. Jesus did not say to people, “According to your need be it unto you.” But he said, “According to your faith be it unto you.” Whether or not you need something, whatever that means, if you have faith for it, then you can get whatever you want.

The disciples of Jesus failed to heal a boy who had a demon (Matthew 17:14-20). They were not stupid enough to say to the father, “God gives us what we need, not what we want.” Did the boy really need healing, or deliverance from the demon? He had survived for years with the condition. And he did not need to survive in the first place. Eventually, he would have died even if he had received healing. He did not need anything. His father did not need anything either. They did not come because of need, since need means nothing. He wanted healing for his son. He wanted it. No other reason was required.

Then Jesus came and healed the boy. If the boy needed deliverance from the demon, then why didn’t God give him what he needed when the disciples tried to help him? If deliverance from the demon was not something needed, but merely something desired, then why did God give him what was desired but not needed when Jesus helped him? What was the difference? Jesus told the disciples that they failed because of their lack of faith. The difference was faith. When the disciples failed, Jesus did not say, “God gives us what we need, not what we want.” He did not accept failure as a revelation of the will of God. Instead, he walked right back into the situation and forced the demon to leave. He wanted something to happen, so he made it happen.

If you have faith, Jesus said that when there is a mountain in your way, you can tell it to throw itself into the sea, and it must obey you (Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:23). If you have faith, Jesus said that you can command a tree to be uprooted and be planted in the sea — a miracle that is never needed — and it must do what you say (Luke 17:6). He did not say that these are things that he could do because he was the Son of God. He said that his followers could do these things. God will back us, so that we will receive whatever we ask for in prayer, if we have faith (Matthew 21:22). He did not say that we will obtain what we need, but we will obtain what we request, what we believe, and what we command. On the one hand, we have the doctrine of Jesus: “If you want something to happen, command it to happen by faith. I don’t care if it is unnecessary, unnatural, and even grotesque, make it happen by force.” On the other hand, we have this stupid whiny platitude: “God gives you what you need, not what you want.”

Now consider how Jesus fed the thousands. Pay attention, because we will examine three related passages (Matthew 14:15-21, Matthew 15:32-38, Matthew 16:8-11). Jesus fed thousands of people at least twice in his ministry. In Matthew 14, he started with five loaves and two fish (v. 17). He fed more than five thousand people (v. 21), and he had twelves baskets of food left over (v. 20). In Matthew 15, he started with seven loaves and a few small fish (v. 34). He fed more than four thousand people (v. 38), and he had seven baskets of food left over (v. 37).

He said, “I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.” Thus the need was defined by this desire. What was needed was defined by what was wanted. The need was not to allow the people to eat until they were full and could eat no more, but the need was to allow the people to eat only until they were not so hungry that they would faint on the way home. Yet in each instance there was so much surplus that the people could not finish the food. And if any of them tried to take some food with them, they could not carry all of it, so that the disciples had entire baskets of food left over.

In Matthew 14, Jesus started with less food, and he had a larger crowd to feed. But he ended with more food left over. That is, in Matthew 14, he started with five loaves to feed more than five thousand people, and he had twelves baskets of food left over. And in Matthew 15, he started with seven loaves to feed more than four thousand people, and he had seven baskets of food left over.

Here the need and the answer are both specified. We are able to observe how God responds to our need in exact and numerical terms. In both instances, Scripture demonstrates that God answers by supplying far more than what we need. He responds to faith and prayer by drowning out the need with overwhelming surplus. In fact, when the need is great and our resource is small, he responds with an even more outrageous excess. His answer is so unnecessarily excessive that the measure of need, or the very idea of need, becomes irrelevant. In fact, now the need becomes how to manage the excess (John 6:12).

This is the most reliable indication for what we ought to expect when we ask for our “daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). It is not a modest request. It cannot mean an amount that allows us to barely survive, while we continue to live unsatisfied and unfulfilled, and without any surplus. Again, Jesus defined the need as only sending the people away without making them faint from hunger, and God answered with overwhelming excess. Don’t forget — that happened when Jesus wanted only one meal to sustain the people. What should we expect, if we ask for supplies for a whole day? And what should we expect, if we ask this every day? Our need would become how to manage the ridiculous abundance that God would throw upon us.

Then in Matthew 16, the disciples misunderstood that Jesus was asking about bread when he used it as a metaphor to warn them about false doctrine (v. 5-7). Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith (v. 8). But what did faith have to do with it? If they had learned from how Jesus fed the thousands, it would have eliminated from their thinking the possibility that the lack of bread would ever be a problem. Since they assumed that the lack of bread was a problem, it meant that they still did not have faith in God to provide. Therefore, Jesus rebuked them for their lack of faith, and he reminded them of the amount of food left over on these occasions (v. 9-12).

Faith enables us to see things from God’s perspective. Thus it enables us to understand what God means by what he says in Scripture. It enables us to agree with him. Theology becomes direct and simple. We will not have to invent traditions and platitudes to nullify his words. The lack of faith is a root of spiritual dullness. It is often exhibited in the bewildering insanity that we see in theological teachings and discussions, and some of the doctrines that have been codified in creeds and confessions. These are man-made doctrines that attempt to construct a religion without God. Unbelief makes people STUPID.

Earlier I mentioned that I would say more about one issue, and we are now ready to do it. We have noticed that need is meaningless in itself, but it is relative to a point of reference, such as our desire. Unbelief attempts to portray defeat and disappointment as triumph, and so it might claim that the point of reference is what God desires for us, not what we desire for ourselves. The purpose is to destroy any definite expectation. We have answered this several ways when we first mentioned it, but we can reinforce the point.

Jesus was the revelation of the will of God in the life of man. If we define what he needed by what he desired, then the need was only enough food to sustain the people on their way home. But God answered with overwhelming excess, allowing the people to eat until they were full, not knowing how much they carried home, and still had many baskets of food left over. Thus if we define what is needed by what God desires for us, we can only conclude that the answer would not be less than what we desire for ourselves, but it would be an even more excessive amount that far surpasses what we are able to ask or imagine. Pushing everything off to “the will of God” does not reduce the expectation of what we ought to receive, but it would increase this expectation to an inconceivable level to us.

To remove another damnable teaching, God does not give us something categorically different from what we ask and force us to call it better. When someone asks for food, God does not give him cancer and then threaten the poor fellow to confess that God knows what he truly needs after all. This is paganism. This is the kind of religion that makes the people regard deity with pure dread – not sincere reverence and admiration, but the terror and suspicion that one might show toward a rabid monster. Jesus wanted food for the people, and God gave food to the people, only much more than what they needed. No tricks. Only grace.

Therefore, whether a need is defined by what we desire for ourselves or by what God desires for us, it can only lead to excessive supply and success. There is no room for unbelief. The only place for a man who proposes modest answers to prayer is to admit that he does not believe in God at all.