Everybody Needs A God

     What do we love, place our hope in, and value? The way that we answer these questions will usually help flesh out our god. In other words, we could essentially say that everybody has a god, with a small ‘g.’ Everybody has someone, something or some ideology that they value, love, rest in and expect good to come from. Even in our age of secularism with its absence of the sacred, mankind still strives to have a sense of esteem and assurance; a feeling of completeness. Mankind will always have a god.

     From the beginning mankind has constantly turned inward to the god of ‘self.’ We aspire to have it our way, to be autonomous and to exert our sinful rebellious free wills.  However, this very aspiration of turning inward on self and attempting to be the sole source of all divine, creative and unknowable eternal mystery is the very thing that curses us. Instead of turning to the God of the Bible, we revolt and run to the god of self. We drink sweet poison thinking that we are edifying ourselves, when the exact opposite is true.

     But you may say, “God is dead. We are way past the ill-logical and barbarous days of mythology.  This is the 21st century!” These previous statements sure do capture the spiritual climate of our age. However, let’s carry this out a bit further. If there is no existence of divine order to the universe, no divine plan, no outside force/god in which society is governed and mankind is the lone center of the universe, what does this mean and where does this lead us? It means that mankind is the lone source of meaning and that mankind is only as good as the strength, force and wisdom that mankind can muster up. This means that autonomous humankind is now responsible for acquiring meaning, straining his/her will to actualize that meaning and then privately dealing with the emotional, physical and spiritual pressures of being an isolated autonomous being.  How does mankind cope with the pressure of being the only active cause in the cosmos? It is clear that mankind inherently is not designed this way. There is a need for the sacred, a need for something outside of ourselves, and a need for us to be acted upon. Everybody needs a God, for we are certainly not God.

     The God of the Bible though takes a different approach. Instead of turning inward, He turns outward towards mankind, His creation. In the motive of divine justice and divine love He pursues mankind in the person of Jesus Christ. God gave us Jesus; Jesus became flesh and made His dwelling among us. Wisdom, life, justice and divine love come to us.  Jesus lives a life that is completely opposite to ours. Instead of being turned inward, He turns outward in complete obedience towards God the Father and outward in love towards mankind. He lived in a way and manner that we did not live and cannot live. Furthermore, we see that Jesus moves towards His death with the mission and plan of offering Himself up as a sacrifice to make things right with God the Father on our behalf. Jesus chooses to die for our self-chosen rebellion. Jesus came not to acquire meaning from us but came to give of His life for us as a ransom payment; a selfless giving life for selfish lives. Christ is the essence of our esteem and is the Lord and Savior that you and me need.