When People Are Big and God Is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

by Edward T. Welch

Psychological needs.

we need people to warn us about the deceitfulness of sin, to point us to the love of Jesus, to help carry our burdens, and for many other things.

“Each of us fervently wants someone to see us exactly as we are, warts and all, and still accept us.”5 Without this longing fulfilled, we are empty cups.

The problem is not that we desire love, the problem is how much we desire it or for what purpose we desire it.

This explains why Christ is sometimes not enough for us. If I stand before him as a cup waiting to be filled with psychological satisfaction, I will never feel quite full. Why? First, because my lusts are boundless; by their very nature, they can’t be filled. Second, because Jesus does not intend to satisfy my selfish desires. Instead, he intends to break the cup of psychological need (lusts), not fill it.

Now I understand what held me in the fear of man, even though I knew the gospel well. Not only did I need to grow in the fear of the Lord; I also needed to repent. My felt needs, desires, or lusts were big. They were so big that I looked to everybody to fill them, both God and other people. I feared other people because people were big, my desires were even bigger, and God was small.

People are most similar to God when he is the object of their affection. People should delight in God, as he does in himself. We are to make his name famous or hallowed throughout the world; we are to declare the coming of his glorious kingdom.

This means that the essence of imaging God is to rejoice in God’s presence, to love him above all else, and to live for his glory, not our own.

Of course, this assumes that individuals must know the love of Christ. But the same individuals must realize that, by themselves, they do not constitute the body of Christ. It takes the entire church to provide a vague imitation of the glory of God.

According to Ephesians, what do we really need? We need to be a corporate body, smitten with the glory of God, committed to the unity of the church, deluged by his love, and faithful as we walk together in obedience to him, even in our suffering.

you can understand how misguided it is to judge God from the perspective of what we would do in a situation. The temporal and sinful is never the standard for the holy.

In traditional Western weddings, the bride is the honored one. Everyone at the wedding talks about how beautiful she is. All eyes are consistently on her. At the heavenly, eternal ceremony, however, our gaze will be fixed on another.

Our goal is to love people more than need them. We are overflowing pitchers, not leaky cups.

It is much easier to talk about Jesus when his life consistently leaves us in awe.

those within the body of Christ are our family in a unique way. They are the ones with whom we will spend eternity, and they are the ones whose partnership we need in order to represent Christ.

Remember, (1) the flesh has a sinful bent toward self-interest. It is committed to the question, “What’s in it for me?” (2) Satan is a liar and divider.

And (3) the world tries to institutionalize these tendencies.

Yet when we truly understand that God has called us to participate in a larger family (i.e., the church), we are free. Church begins to feel a little more like a family sitting with us in our living room. Better yet, we feel like a family sitting together at the feet of Jesus, sitting around the throne. With family, there is no self-consciousness, no embarrassment, no fear.

If we privatize Scripture, turning “we” into “I,” we have the following dilemmas: I have to go into all the world and make disciples (Matt. 28:18). I have to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). I have to give proper recognition to the widows who are in need (1 Tim. 5:3). I have to teach the older men, younger men, and younger women (Titus 2:1-8). And somehow, in the gaps of my day, I have to work and make enough money for my family. Fortunately, these commands are given to the church.

one of the great blessings on earth is to be united with God’s people rather than to fear them or be isolated from them.

perceived safety of self-protection and lack of vulnerability is actually a curse from which God desires to liberate us.

The question should be this: How can I grow in love for and service to the body of Christ? Gifts are the way we naturally love and serve. To paraphrase Augustine, if you want to know your God-given gifts, first know that the purpose of spiritual gifts is to bring unity to the church. Then “love God and do what you feel like doing.”

Unity and love mean: We confess our sins to each other (James 5:16). We share with brothers and sisters who are in need (Rom. 12:13; 1 John 3:17). We are vulnerable with others (Hosea). We associate with people of low position (Rom. 12:16). We creatively consider ways to honor others (Rom. 12:10). We discern when to confront sin and when to overlook it (Matt 18:15; Prov. 17:9; 19:11). We are patient with everyone (1 Cor. 13:4). We are willing to sacrifice (John 15:12-13). We practice church discipline (Matt. 18:15-19; 1 Cor. 5:1-5).

We love enemies by surprising them with our service toward them. We love neighbors by treating them like our family. And we love the body of Christ — our true brothers and sisters — in such a way that the world and spiritual powers are stunned by our oneness.

When we live in the fear of the Lord, there is an intensity to our lives. We are zealous to obey, we are no longer indifferent to others, and we have a desire for the church to be brilliant and outstanding.

The fear of the Lord simplifies life.

I found that pride ran deep. Beneath the despondency of little failures was the desire to be somebody. I wanted to be the great teacher. I wanted to be filled with the respect of my students. I wanted to have the most popular classes. “I want...”