Necessity and Want

I'm growing more experientially familiar with these words, not like some in our world, but moreso than I have maybe known or felt in the past. I was reminded this morning of the verses in Philippians 4:

12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

By God's grace, I am trying to cooperate with the Lord's ways with me and my family in this season of our lives. It feels like a season of constant and oftimes conflicting necessities and wants. Yet, I daily sense the power of the Holy Spirit in my heart and mind, reminding me of His truth and giving me grace to agree with it rather than question and doubt Him as I have so often in the past.

This morning, I read this quote from "Of First Importance", a blog I try to read daily as it points me to the good news of the Gospel through a daily quote:

Poor folks must either borrow or beg the rich, and the only thing that commendeth sinners to Christ is extreme necessity and want. Christ’s love is ready to make and provide a ransom and money for a poor body who hath lost his purse. ‘Ho, ye that have no money, come and buy’ (Isa 55:1). That is the poor man’s market.
- Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2007) 13.

I love that what commends me, a sinner, to Christ, is not a clean house, stellar parenting, loyal friendship to others or even my submission as a wife. What commends me to Christ is my extreme necessity and want. I'm "getting in touch with" my extreme necessity and want on so many levels and must say that joy fills my heart knowing that Christ's invites me to the poor man's market, the one place I feel quite at home these days. Indeed I am a poor (wo)man, and grateful Christ invites me to "come, buy and eat".