History Books in 90 Days: 1 Kings 3-5
God has no needs
John 5:26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.
(NIV)
Whatever God is, and all that He is, He is in Himself. All life is in and from God; no creature has
life on its own. Life is a gift from God. To admit that God needs something would be to admit that
God is incomplete. Need is not a word that can be used to describe God. God has a voluntary
relationship with all of His creation but He has no necessary relation to anything outside Himself.
His interest in humanity stems from His pleasure and not from any need that we can fill in Him.
People meet and marry to fill needs in their lives; they often have kids to fill holes in their hearts.
God does not have these sorts of needs, He is complete in Himself. He did not bring the world
into being to meet some unfulfilled need in Himself. Our relationship with God does not bring
Him to completeness. As humans we need air, we need food, we need water and sleep. To God,
nothing is necessary, He has no needs. In our pride we can find it quite easy to begin to believe
that God needs us. The truth is that God needs no one. This is a blow to our egos, we wonder,
how can this be? Doesn’t God need me to do some great evangelistic work and what about the
ministry that I do? These things make us feel important and necessary to God. Yet the only claim
to importance that we have is the fact that we are created in His image. God exists for Himself and
we exist to bring Him glory. Yet this concept doesn’t paralyze ministry, in fact it stimulates it. While
God does not need us to do anything for Him, He has in sovereignly willed it to work in and through
His obedient children. He needs no one but yet when faith and love is present He works through
anyone. Praise the Lord!
PRAYER and MEDITATION
1. Think about your ministry involvement. Have you slipped into the wrong thinking that God
“needs” you?
2. Meditate on the reason for your existence – for His pleasure and to bring Him glory. Is this
aligned with the choices that you are making?
3. Praise God for His sovereign will of using obedient Children in ministry! Although He doesn’t
need you, He still uses you! What a great God!
