God Does Not Need You.

That’s right. God does not need you and he doesn’t need me either. This may come as a harsh reality to some of us. As a matter of fact, I have had someone get very upset with me when I made the statement that God does not need us. So hang on for a minute. I promise that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is a good message at the end of all this. Stay with me, and read on.
God is infinitely powerful, knowledgeable, and immortal. As such, God does not need us. Why would he? If you had everything you could ever need just by speaking it into existence, you would not need anything either. However, despite the nature of God not needing anything whatsoever, we find a very interesting quirk about our Heavenly Father.
God does not need, but he does want.

God created everything and could create more. He does not have needs.
God has wants and he has desires! This is perhaps part of the nature that we inherited when he created us in his likeness. It should seem a little crazy that the supreme deity of the universe actually has wants. But think about it, if God has always had all of His needs met for all of eternity, why would he bother to create Earth, and animals, and humans? It is because God had (and still has) wants!
God wants to be loved, adored, and worshiped. He also knows that true adoration cannot come from robots. This is why he created us to have free will. He wants us to love him and dedicate our lived to him. As payment for obeying him and following him he promises us eternal life for our soul in a place where there is no longer sin and struggle. It seems like a tough trade now, but in the end it is entirely worth it.
Needs Vs. Wants
It might be easier to take this concept in when we stop and take a look at the differences between needs and wants. Needs are things that we cannot live without. They are things necessary to survival. If our needs are not met, we will perish. Wants fall into an entirely different category. These are things that we set as goals. They fuel our ambition and our desire. The things that we want are the things that motivate us. Achieving a want makes us happy. Most of the time we take out needs being fulfilled for granted. As such, God does not need anything, but there are things that he wants.1Theologically speaking, I am not sure that God has wants either. To want something means that there is something that you currently do not have that you desire. It almost seems as though you are … Continue reading
Let’s make a chart really quick to help us understand this a little more. Here I will list some common needs and wants. Hopefully you can fully understand and appreciate the difference after this.
Needs | Wants |
---|---|
Clean Water | Soda, Beer, Energy Drinks |
Food | Dessert, Pizza, Snacks |
Oxygen | Smoking, Scuba Diving |
Staying Warm/Cool | Trendy Clothes, Apple Bottom Jeans and the Boots with the Fur |
God, a Savior | A Billion Dollars |
So Why Does This Matter?
Good question. So what if God does not need me but he wants me instead, what’s the big deal? Well, it may seem like a small difference or a simple play on words, but I believe that there is actually quite a bit more. I mentioned earlier that the things that we want we tend to go after with more ambition and determination. They are things that we actually desire. The only time we really desire our needs is when we need them. Our wants are constantly at the forefront of our minds because they will generally make us happy.
Knowing that God wants us makes his love for us that much more special. If God needed us, then we could easily believe that he cares for us simply because he has to fulfill a need. God loves us enough to want us. We are constantly on the front of God’s mind. He loves us and is always thinking about us. If God needed us, his love for us would be different. We were not created to do whatever we want, but rather we were created with a purpose and with a plan.
God wants to use us to accomplish His wants.

God, in his infinite love, chooses to use us, broken messed up humans, to fulfill his plans.
This can be taken the next step further. God has a plan. This plan is going to happen whether we like it or not. Ultimately, if God needs to he will step in and take matters into his own hands. However, God chooses to use us to fulfill his plan. Nothing that he wants us to do is something that he could not do himself. If God really wanted someone to believe in him he would miraculously appear before them in shining glory, knock them off of a horse, and blind them until they came around (see Acts 9). This is not how God usually works.
Instead, God chooses to use people to save and reach other lost people. God’s greatest want in life is to have all people worship him and embrace what Jesus has done for them. This means that what God wants he has entrusted to us! Can you imagine doing this in our lives? We would never let someone else take care of the things that we want. Our wants are our desires that we want to be a part of and experience. This is what God is surrendering to us! He is allowing us to be the tools of his master plan. He wants us to experience the joy and blessing of leading someone to him. This is some crazy love if you really think about it.
Wants feel more important to us than needs.

A parents love for their child is the closest thing I can think of to God’s love for us. The want and desire for the baby is much stronger than the needs that we take for granted in our lives.
I will close with this final example. Consider a married couple who is unable to have children of their own. They decide that they are going to adopt a child. They really want a child. Ultimately adopting a child has a lot more upfront costs than having their own child. This doesn’t matter to them, they want a child. After looking at their options they find a child that is perfect for them. Their desire to have a child of their own to hold and to love is the greatest passion in their lives. There is nothing that is going to stop them from adopting a child.
The couple does not need a child. Technically they would survive without one. However, they want one so bad that it physically and emotionally hurts them to know they cannot have one. When they are finally able to adopt a child they love it to the fullest extent of love. This is because the child was something they wanted and it burned within them.
This is how God feels about us. God does not need us. God does not need. He wants us with every ounce of his being. He will pursue us and reach out to us. Others will be sent to us in order to point us to Him. God’s ultimate passion is to see his creation come back to him and worship him so that he can love them to his fullest capacity.
Footnotes
↑1 | Theologically speaking, I am not sure that God has wants either. To want something means that there is something that you currently do not have that you desire. It almost seems as though you are missing something, but God is not missing anything. It is a tricky concept and for the purpose of this post I am saying that God has wants, but I am not entirely comfortable putting God into this box. Perhaps we are limited to our human understanding of needs and wants and that is what makes this tricky. |
---|