God Wants Something From You

Intro:Most of us have probably wondered at some point, "Why did God create the world in the first place? What does He get out of it? Doesn't it seem like a lot of trouble to have gone to?" Considering the frustration and disappointment and pain that we have inflicted on Him over the course of years since the creation, it seems a fair question. But it's a question for which we have an answer in the Scriptures.

The fact is that God wants something from you. He wants something from all of us, and He created us (and sent his Son) in order to get it.

  1. What does God need?
  2. What does God deserve?
  3. What does God want?

This is why, though God is glorified daily by heavenly hosts, and is in need of nothing, He made us anyway. What does God want that He cannot create or command into existence? The answer is simple - God cannot command people to voluntarily seek him. He cannot create beings with no choice and then have them choose to love him. To have someone to choose to love Him, and to seek Him, and to be like Him, God created man in His own image (Gen. 1:27) and then gave him that choice.

Thus, God wants a relationship with man, a personal, intimate friendship. He wants us, like David, to be "a man after God's own heart" (Acts 13:22 - "And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will."), and like Abraham, "a friend of God" (James 2:23 - "And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.").

Our obedience comes out of that love for Him. This is why Jesus said in John 14:15 - "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John points out in 1 John 4:8, that our knowledge of God must show itself in our becoming like God. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." That relationship with God defines our actions and our identity. Again in 1 John 3:10, "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.".

This is God's goal, and has always been. In Romans 8:29, Paul says, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." Since before the foundation of the world, God had planned for Jesus to be both our Savior (1 Jn. 4:14 - "And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.") and our example (1 Pet. 2:21) so that we could be like him, and thus dwell with Him.

God is seeking to return us to the paradise that was on earth briefly, when God and man walked and talked together, without sin separating them, in the garden of Eden. And it is to restore this state that God has planned and worked since before the foundation of the world, that He might call us back to himself through Christ, to live with Him forever.

1 Pet. 1:19 - 20 - "But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,"

John 4:23-24 - "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Conclusion:

This is what God wants from you. God has given us every good thing that we have ever experienced, or hope to experience (James 1:17 - "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."). He has blessed us, protected us, and saved us - are we willing to give Him what He seeks from us in return? If not, what does that say about us? What sort of people are we, to spurn the gifts of someone Who loves us so much and has done so much for us?