I’m sure you have pondered that question before right? We all wonder at some point … why did God create man? Especially knowing the future and knowing that we would fall, that He would have to die etc. etc. What was the whole point? Of late, I have learnt to test everything against the Word of God to see if the things I believe are actually what God says in His word. Below is what I found:
Genesis 2
26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, TO BE LIKE US. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 Then God blessed them and said, “BE FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY. FILL THE EARTH and GOVERN IT. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
Do you see it? Let me spell it out … it says that we were created to
- To be like God
- To be fruitful
- To multiply
- To fill the earth
- To govern the earth
Lets keep going … next I found this verse
Acts 17 24 “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.
This verse made me laugh. Somehow I had gotten the impression that God needed humans and angels to remind Him of how great He was and so He created them to worship Him. This verse told me that wasn’t true … it is the other way around. God is the one who is rather satisfying all His creation … and He doesn’t need anything from His creation … wow! Note that this includes angels.
Isaiah 43:6-7 6 I will say to the north and south, ‘Bring my sons and daughters back to Israel from the distant corners of the earth. 7 Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have MADE THEM FOR MY GLORY. It was I who created them.’
Ah ha! For His Glory! A wise woman (my wife) once beautifully explained God’s glory in a single sentence; she said “God’s glory is the total value of God … everything He is worth’. Of course this is something we can’t even comprehend but the important thing is that it is the reason why God created us. So being like God, being fruitful, multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it all serve a purpose … they are for God’s glory!
So where does worship fit in with all this? I searched the scriptures some more and found this:
Jeremiah 13:11 As a loincloth clings to a man’s waist, so I created Judah and Israel to cling to me, says the LORD. They were to be my people, my pride, my glory—an honor to my name. But they would not listen to me.
And then it hit me … saying that people were created to worship God is like saying a television was created to use electricity or is like saying a car was created to use fuel. Remember God said he ‘satisfies every need’? When He created us, He designed us such that we are worshipers … just like TVs are designed to use energy. Now there are many forms of energy but only one of them can be used by TVs such that the TV works … we call it electrical energy … much in the same way worshiping something other than God is like trying to run a TV with heat or run a diesel engine car on water! It simply won’t work and the TV or car will end up being destroyed … right? Much in the same way ‘worshiping God’ is ‘clinging to God’ and that is how we were created but it isn’t the full reason why! When we don’t worship God we die (spiritually) and so we don’t even get to fully fulfill the ‘why’ part.
A little note about worship. Worship entails everything you do. Jesus said God wants those who worship Him in ‘spirit and in truth’ and the scriptures say that we should do ‘everything we do to the glory of God’. Worship is not just singing praises, worship is not just giving money in church, worship is not just praying … it is all of those things and more. It is every single waking moment of your life. So you see why its absurd to say that we were created to worship God? Our very existence constitutes worship … if we are not worshiping God then we are dead!
As the scriptures above have shown, the reason we were created was to be God’s glory and we do this by worshiping Him … or rather, as God puts it ‘clinging to’ Him. I’ll admit I’m not sure exactly what being God’s glory means … multiplying and filling the earth, subduing and governing it and looking to the life of Christ are good places to start but I honestly don’t yet have the revelation of what it means to be God’s glory. I just know that it is the reason why God created you and me and that we need to cling to God in order to have any chance of fulfilling the purpose of becoming His glory.
Remember this with every breath you take …. God created you, Jesus died for you, you exist, live, breath to be His glory! Meanwhile, meditate also on this verse by David on humans
Psalm 8 5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority— 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.
Stay blessed,
George.
