Man’s Need For God
by Darwin Hunter
One of the most fundamental
admissions a man must make is his need for God! Man is incomplete, and cannot
be whole, without God in his heart life. We have been made to glorify our Maker (Isaiah 43:7). The very foundation of our existence is to “Fear God, and keep His commandments, for
this is man’s all” (NKJV, Ecclesiastes
12:13).
Jesus taught that loving God with one’s
whole being is the first and great commandment (Matthew 22:37-38). That commandment embraces drawing near to sincerely
from the heart in the doing of every directive God has delivered to man.
God does not need man. He is the eternal “I AM” (Exodus 3:14). His
existence is not dependent on man, nor can man supply God with anything, since
He possesses no insufficiency. Paul
wrote of God, “Neither is He worshiped
with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life,
breath, and oil things” (Acts 17:25).
God declared, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For
the world is Mine, and all its fullness” (Psalms 50:12). God’s
unlimited power can instantaneously provide His every holy desire, even what
God of man (his worship, and material gifts) are not to supply God’s need, but
to help develop gratitude and love in man.
Man needs God. Man owes His very existence to God (Genesis 2:7). His life is drawn from the power of His
Creator, not the other way around. Only
because God willed our existence is any being on earth alive today, and only
through His power are we daily sustained: “for
in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We are
taught to acknowledge; ”if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that” (James 4:15). Jesus taught His disciples to recognize our
daily dependence on God for our “daily bread” and for the rain and the sunshine
(Matthew 6:11, 5:45).
Man cannot, apart from God, supply any
of
these daily needs. Thus, we should worship and adore the “Giver of every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17).
Much more than daily material
needs, however, man is destitute spiritually speaking. When he reaches the age of accountability, he
willingly transgresses God’s holy law, and becomes a sinner alienated from His
God (1 John 3:4; Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 3:23, 6:23). Man can do nothing, apart from God’s grace and
mercy, to save himself. All he might to supply on his own, by his own devising, would be nothing more than “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).
He is totally dependent on His loving God to supply the gift of His Son to
redeem Him from sin (John 3:16;
1 John 2:1). Only when fallen man recognizes His need for
God will he respond in faith in Christ, penitence, and baptism to receive God’s
pardon (Acts 2:38), and be
reconciled through the “blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:20-23). MAN
NEEDS GOD! May we never forget that
salient fact.