Great Commandment Love Identifies Needs
Andy was big, burly, and mean, kind of like an NFL linebacker — except Andy didn't play football. He was just a very big, very angry forty-year-old man. Though he was a Christian, Andy had a history of violence that often got him into big trouble. In the past, when he flew into one of his frequent rages, Andy was likely to throw furniture across the room, drive his fist through a wall, or punch somebody's lights out. A dozen years prior to his visit with me, he had spent time in jail for physically abusing his wife and kids. This man had been like a hand grenade with the pin pulled, ready to go off at the slightest provocation.
During another time of marital separation caused by Andy's violent anger, his pastor and church elders had confronted Andy's sinful behavior. Church discipline in accordance with Matthew 18:15-20 
was initiated. Even though Andy was beginning to respond to the Lord's discipline, his wife and the church leadership felt that still more help was needed.
Clint, Andy's pastor, called me. "David, I'm at the end of my wits with Andy. We have prayed together on numerous occasions about his anger. I sense his genuine desire to change and find freedom. He has made much progress, but both he and I are fearful of the future. I have counseled him from Scripture, and he is involved in a men's accountability group. But I still sense a reservoir of rage just below the surface. Nothing seems to help. I'm afraid that one of these days soon Andy might hurt someone again. Will you please talk to him?" I said I would if Clint came along. He agreed.
When the two men walked in, Andy was noticeably irritated because Clint had insisted that he come. I sat down with this six-foot three-inch, 230-pound stick of dynamite and began to talk. "Andy, your pastor has filled me in on your background, and I have read about some of the things you have done. I rejoice with you in your recent confessions and appreciate your desire to find freedom from your anger. But I want to tell you something else I know about you. I know that underneath the anger and violence and rage that have ruled your life for so many years, you are really hurting."
Andy's face softened, as if the anger was being drained from him. I continued, "In fact, when I think about the magnitude of abuse that has poured out of your life, I'm convinced that there is an enormous amount of pain and hurt and fear inside you. That pain has probably been festering there a long time. And you have been dealing with it all alone."
When I said the word "alone," tears came to Andy's eyes.
I said, "You know the pain is in there, don't you, Andy?"
He nodded in agreement.
Would you like to begin ridding yourself of the pain and hurt and fear that have haunted you all these years?
"Andy, just like God brought you to a point of confession over your sinful rage, he also wants to minister healing to you at the point of your pain. Would you like to begin ridding yourself of the pain and hurt and fear that have haunted you all these years?"
He nodded, and the tears started to roll down his cheeks.
"You know that your pastor loves you, don't you, Andy?"
He indicated that he did.
"Then I'm going to slip out of the room for a few minutes. The Bible states that God is the God of all comfort, and at times he desires to share with us some of his comfort through others. If you are willing, I'd like you to move over beside Clint and just begin telling him about your hurt, and let your pastor hurt with you. Would you be willing to do that?"
Andy said he would.
I prayed with them briefly and then left the room. I was gone for about twenty minutes while Andy wept and poured out three decades of deep hurt. When I returned, Clint and big, tough Andy were on their knees embracing. They had just finished praying together.
At Clint's encouragement Andy told me part of his story. Running home one night because he was late, nine-year-old Andy took a shortcut through the park. Some men stepped out of the darkness and grabbed him. The men sexually abused the terrified boy, then let him go.
It was "not good" for Andy to carry his pain and shame alone.
When Andy finally got home, he was filled with shame and self-condemnation. Feeling that the abuse was his own fault, he took his punishment for being late and never told his parents about the incident in the park. For thirty years Andy had carried his pain and shame alone, blaming himself for the humiliating abuse he had suffered. "None of it would have happened," he had told himself repeatedly, "if I had not been late."
It was "not good" for Andy to carry his pain and shame alone, as evidenced by the violence and abuse that had boiled out of him since childhood. Andy had suffered through this relational and emotional crisis for thirty years, alone and without comfort. His sinful rage was inexcusable, and yet in a brief encounter with God's comfort, additional victory and freedom had been realized. Andy rose from his knees that day with a great burden lifted and a new perspective on his life as a Christian.
There was still much healing ahead. This was only one step in his journey of healing, but it was a very important step. His wife later offered her tear-filled comfort, and Andy experienced even deeper sorrow over how he had hurt her and his children. The Great Physician had begun a good work in Andy and his family, and he would faithfully complete it.
Love Meets Valid Needs
What was it about Pastor Clint's ministry in those short minutes that brought additional blessing and freedom to Andy's life? He had previously done everything he could think of to help him get over his violent temper. He had led him in prayer many times. He had encouraged him to meditate on the Word of God. He had provided an accountability group of godly men to support Andy. What made the difference during their short time together in my office?
That day Clint began to meet a need in Andy that other efforts to help him, as good and necessary as they were, had not met. Andy needed someone to love him selflessly as the second half of the Great Commandment directs. He needed someone to be a channel of God's healing comfort on a horizontal level. In those few minutes in my office, God loved Andy through Clint and began to meet his need for comfort. Andy knew that God loved him all along, but it was the demonstration of God's love through Clint's comfort that brought additional healing to his deep inner pain.
Clint and other church leaders had already challenged Andy with the first half of the Great Commandment. Their scriptural challenge had encouraged Andy's confession of sin, accountability to change, and intimate walk with God. These steps were necessary, but God also desired to minister to Andy's hurt through other people. As we have already said, a ministry that communicates "you only need God" is not fully relevant. Andy's healing was more fully encouraged when Clint— and later others— implemented the second half of the Great Commandment by loving him as they loved themselves. It is this demonstration of God's love that brings relevance.
Identifying Valid Needs
Pastor Clint and others fulfilled the Great Commandment in Andy's life by bringing him to God and by meeting his human need for comfort. Great Commandment love says, "We need God and one another." It is relevant in human lives because it seeks to meet both spiritual needs and valid relational needs, thus removing the aloneness that God calls "not good."
But how do we identify valid relational needs? In short, by identifying in Scripture how God has demonstrated his love toward us and how we are to love others in return. When God demonstrates his love for his human creation, we find a valid relational need that he desires to meet, at least in part, through us.
We must express caring concern for others just as God cares for us.
In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 , God is described as "the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles." This passage establishes that human beings have a need for comfort in times of trouble, because God would not comfort us unless we needed it. But he doesn't stop there. We are to "comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" (v. 4). Notice the pattern. The passage establishes our need for comfort in troubled times, declares that God is the ultimate source of the comfort we need, and then calls us to lovingly share his comfort with those who need it.
Another example is found in Romans 15:7 : "Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you." The passage establishes our need for acceptance, declares that God is the ultimate source of the acceptance we need, and calls us to meet the need for acceptance in others.
In Romans 15:5 we find "the God who gives... encouragement," and 1 Thessalonians 5:11 adds, "Therefore encourage one another." These passages establish our need for encouragement, reveal God as the source of encouragement, and command us to lovingly share encouragement with others.
Twenty-four times in the New Testament, believers are instructed to "greet one another." The word "greet" means more than just saying hello. It relates to deeply knowing and expressing caring concern. Since we are urged to express care to one another, we must have a need for this kind of care. So we must express caring concern for others just as God cares for us. In these passages God seems to be saying, "Just as my Son took the initiative to enter into your world, to know you deeply, and to care for you with loving concern, you must do the same to your friends and the friendless."
A valid need is one that God has met in our lives and admonishes us to meet in the lives of others through the expression of Great Commandment love. As we love God and freely receive from him, we are to freely give to others. God is Jehovah-Jireh, our provider. He has promised to meet all our needs, and he has chosen to do so through our families, friends, and church communities as we love God and allow him to share his life through us. That's what Great Commandment love does: It meets valid relational needs from the resources which God freely supplies.
Vital Relational Needs
Most of us can explain what love is. Passages like 1 Corinthians 13 define love as patient, kind, humble, forgiving, protective, persevering, etc. But where do we learn what love says and does in specific situations?
I believe we discover love's practical, caring dimensions in Bible passages that reveal relational needs we are to meet through God's limitless provision. The examples in previous paragraphs are a start. But dozens of passages in Scripture establish valid needs from God's perspective and call us to join him in the ministry of meeting those needs.
Consider the "one anothers" of the new Testament, for example: accept one another, encourage one another, be affectionate to one another, bear one another's burdens, and so on. Each reveals an area of human relational need where Great Commandment love may be applied in practical, caring ways.
—Great Commandment Principle
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