The Saturday Series - 7 - "No Need"

(Friends:  Most Saturdays for the duration of this year, I plan on sharing a message that relates to the character and nature of God, and our response thereunto.  I hope you will find it helpful, and as always, thanks for allowing us to send the devotionals to you.  Glen).

The Saturday Series - 7

"No Need"     

  

  

   God exists as a completely self sufficient being without need or requirement.

   "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things" (Acts 17:24-25).

   Our Lord is perfectly fulfilled in and of Himself, and of His triune nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In contrast, all others derive their existence and their meaning from God, both in the origin and the sustaining.  "Without Him was not anything made that was made… By Him all things consist… He is thy life" (John 1:3; Colossians 1:17; Deuteronomy 30:20).  Nothing in creation adds anything of sustenance or supply to the Creator.  God did not make things to fill a void in Himself, or because of discontentment or dissatisfaction.  "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is Mine, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 50:12).  He rather created as the expression of His own joy and fulness: "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created" (Revelation 4:11).

    Few Biblical truths more establish Truth in our hearts and minds regarding our Lord, enabling us to rightly consider and relate to Him.  Because God is perfectly self-fulfilled, He can always act in a manner faithful to Himself and His nature.  Unlike ourselves, need never complicates His determination to act in unselfish love.  Nor does any trace of impure motive based on weakness or inner void ever cause Him to violate His character.  Thus, He will always be "righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works" (Psalm 145:17).  Moreover, He will always be perfectly able to "give to all life and breath and all things" by a just and gracious administration that bears no admixture of selfish intent.  God has no need to be anything other than who and what He is because He has no need.

   Regarding ourselves, human beings must put to rest any notion that we satisfy some emotional requirement in God.  We do not.  We rather possess the capacity to please or displease Him, based on our response to Him.  He can therefore love us purely and perfectly because He seeks nothing in us or from us regarding His own fulfillment.  To understand this truth, simply consider the contrast of our relationships with others.  Regardless of how purely we seek to love others, can we ever suggest that we are not also seeking some fulfillment of our own personal need in even our best moments of human relationship?  Hardly.  God, however, can and does love purely and perfectly in unselfish devotion to the creation that possesses great capacity to bless His heart, but no capacity to fulfill His soul.  His soul is whole, as it were, and let us rejoice that only One exists whose very name declares the self-sufficiency of His character and nature…

"And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is His name?   What shall I say unto them?  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

(Exodus 3:13-14)

Weekly Memory Verse

   Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.

(II Thessalonians 2:16-17)