Nothing makes me cringe like hearing some speaker say that God needs us, or that God just can't get his plans accomplished without our help. I realize that the speaker wants to encourage people to work and obey God, but such statements betray at best serious ignorance, and perhaps more accurately, pride and arrogance.

Paul makes it quite plain when he addresses the Athenians and says, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all man life and breath and everything else....and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." (Acts 17:24-25-26b)

It is the same thought as expressed by David when he writes: "I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it." (Psalm 50:8-12)

The point is: we need God; God does not need us. He does not need our worship, he does not need our service, he does not need our obedience, he does not need our prayers, and he does not need our fellowship. If he did need any of these things, God says, I wouldn't tell you. He can take care of himself. God is entirely self-sufficient.

But man needs God for every breath he takes. He needs him for every drop of his salvation. He needs his grace to live before the face of God from day to day. God is not at all glorified when we claim that God needs us, and when we presumptuously think that our service provides a lack in him. He is surely offended when we boast that God can't get his work done without our miserable and feeble efforts.

However, God is most glorified when we come before him in deep awareness of our absolute need of him, in humble confession of our sins, in supplication for his mercy. God is glorified when we drink deeply of the living water he offers so freely to us, as we come again and again to the ever-flowing fountain of life. He is glorified as we are over and over again satisfied by what he offers to us. He is pleased when we admit that our giving and our service are but expressions of the enabling of his grace. He is the giver of all things, so let us bring him glory by taking what he freely offers from his hand, and thanking and praising him for his grace. May we not rob him of his glory by claiming that we fulfill his needs, as though he needed anything!