What People Really Need for Life Today
- Jack Selcher
- Oct 23, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Summary
Necessities like food, water, shelter, and healthcare are not enough for true satisfaction, and most people still feel unfulfilled despite having them. Research suggests meaning comes from responsibility and serving others, but Scripture reveals the deeper need: we live not by bread alone, but by God’s Word. Real contentment comes from trusting, obeying, and doing the good works God planned for us, guided by His Word and empowered by His Spirit
What People Really Need for Life Today
What people really need for life today goes beyond life's necessities. Abby Watkins lists the necessities. They include an adequate food supply, water free from pollutants and diseases; facilities to dispose of human waste, adequate healthcare, shelter, education, and access to information.1 As you will soon see, these things are clearly insufficient to provide complete satisfaction and contentment.
Most People Still Lack Satisfaction
Forty-four percent of Americans say they are “very satisfied” with the way things are going in their personal life, the lowest in Gallup’s trend since 2001.2 That means fifty-six percent are not, even though the aforementioned necessities are all being met for most. That suggests people need more for life, and many of them never find it.
Searching for Meaning Apart from God Falls Short
According to the Cato 2019 Welfare, Work, and Wealth National Survey, “Those who seek greater meaning and purpose in their lives may be more likely to find it through identifying inherent value in their work, taking on more responsibility, emphasizing the things they can control rather than what they cannot, and serving those around them. Furthermore, these data also suggest that those who let go of their envy and resentment of others may have a greater ability to find their purpose.”3 Although there is some value in some of the things through which people find meaning, none are truly God-centered and driven.
Scripture’s Answer to Human Fulfillment
What do people need to live a satisfied and contented life in the twenty-first century? God answered that question more than 3,400 years ago in Deuteronomy 8:3. Moses is addressing the Israelites who are about to enter the Promised Land. “Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3 NLT).
God’s Word Gives True Life
There it is. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by God’s words. God’s eternal, living word births new spiritual life out of the cemetery of our spiritual deadness (1 Peter 1:23), where “contented life” is self-directed. New life from God empowers us to shift into a higher gear than merely having the necessities for life can bestow.
It instructs and directs us in the fundamentals of abundant living. “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right” (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT).
Obedience Unlocks Abundant Living
The information that is applied makes all the difference. “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves” (James 1:22 NLT). To live a satisfied and contented life in the twenty-first century, we need to trust and obey God and “do the good things He planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT), informed by His word and empowered by His Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).
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