I am needy. So are you!
- I need air . . . deprive me for more than a few minutes and it's "game over."
- I need water . . . three days . . . no water . . . no Tommy.
- I need food . . . food is the body's fuel. Gotta have it!
- I need sunlight . . . overcast days lead to cloudy moods.
- I need heat when I'm cold and shade when I'm hot.
- I need glasses.
- I need gasoline for my car and my lawnmower.
- I need doctors for my eyes, teeth, and for my annual physical.
- I need pilots to fly me and cabbies to drive me.
- I need coffee (okay, I don't really need coffee).
- I need relationships.
- To a lesser, but necessary extent, I need music, commerce, art, electrical outlets, pens and paper, knives, forks, spoons, soap, a broom . . . and I'm just getting started!
God needs nothing!
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Acts 17:24-25
For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.“ If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Psalm 50:10-12 ESV
God is independent. This means that "God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy."1
Charles Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, said that nothing refreshes, invigorates, and comforts like musing on God's incomparable greatness. So what solace do we derive from God's self-sufficiency? It is this: You have significance. God loves you. Yes, I know, you've heard it a thousand times, but hear it again. God does not need you, but he chose to make you and then to bless you. Let that sink in! Wayne Grudem writes:
God does not need us for anything, yet it is the amazing fact of our existence that he chooses to delight in us and to allow us to bring joy to his heart. This is the basis for personal significance in the lives of God's people: to be significant to God is to be significant in the most ultimate sense. No greater personal significance can be imagined.2
The God who needs nothing gives you something: significance. Why not rest in your true significance today?
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1 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, page 160. 2 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, pages 162-3.