God Doesn’t Need You, but He Wants You
By Shane Pruitt
Edited by Cooper Taylor
Every single one of us carries a bit of a savior complex in us, and we all love the idea that someone else needs us. Often, we long for the moments where the “bat signal” goes up and we can swoop in with our cape on to save the day. There are even times, where I believe that I’m so awesome, that the Creator of the universe needs my help to accomplish His will! I like the idea of thinking that God somehow needs me.
The problem with believing this, of course, is that a “need” implies a lack of something. So, if God were to need me, then that means that He must lack something in some way. And by definition, if God is lacking in anything, then He is not God.
So what about the character of God demonstrates that He needs nothing, and is self-sufficient in every way? In particular, here are four characteristics of God that demonstrate why He needs and requires nothing outside of Himself:
- Omnipotence: God is all-powerful. There is nothing that He can’t do on His own. “But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”–Matthew 19:26
- Omniscience: God is all-knowing. There is nothing that anyone can teach Him. “…for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything.”–1 John 3:20
- Omnipresence: God is all-present. God is everywhere, so He doesn’t need anyone to go anywhere. “Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!”–Psalm 139:7 –8
- Omni-benevolent: God is all-loving. He doesn’t need a relationship with us. We have the perfect example of a complete unified relationship in the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; a complete relationship within Himself. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”–1 John 4:8
However, the truth is that even though God doesn’t need anything in all the world, He still wants me.
The Gospel is proof-positive that He wants me. He paid the highest price for me. He gave His absolute best to purchase me. Not because I’m awesome or worthy of his redemption, but because of His amazing grace.
Many, many people feel they are of no value, or that they’re some kind of cosmic accident. I’ve heard far too many stories shared with me by people who felt useless or unwanted. For example, after speaking at a camp, a 17-year-old boy shared with me that his mom told him that she had considered aborting him, and that she wished she would have gone through with it. Or, consider the 13-year-old girl who told me about the time her father described her as “nothing more than an accident in the back seat of a car.”It is a perfectly human reaction to take these kinds of things and feel useless, purposeless, and unwanted.
However, Scripture paints a different picture for us: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God” – Galatians 4:4-7.
What a beautiful reminder of the truth that God wants me! He wants us so badly that He was willing to go to any length to redeem us. According to these verses, redemption means that I was once a slave. In fact, I was a slave to sin. There was a ransom or price tag on my head that had to be paid in order to set me free. The price tag was death. Jesus paid that price for my ransom to grant me freedom by dying on the cross, and the resurrection was my receipt that the payment was accepted. I have been set free by the blood of Jesus, and there is nothing more valuable than that. That fact alone places extreme value on my life! Because of Jesus, I am worth something!
But this good news doesn’t stop there. Not only did God pay the ransom to set me free from slavery. . .He went one step further by also giving me a family to come home to. God could have granted me my freedom, then said, “Good luck out there”! But, no! He adopted me and made me His son, He brought me into His family forever. He chose me long before I ever chose Him! He loves me! He wants me!
I am not needed by God. But the glorious truth is that I am wanted by God, and growing to understand the depth of what that means is one of the greatest needs of my life.