God does not need anything from us!

By I.M. Ulysses

Dear friends,

I have been deeply troubled in my spirit for many years about a pernicious and vile lie that has been going around. Though not stated openly, this lie, this false doctrine, this cancer on truth and corrosion on sound doctrine is evident in the teachings of many modern churches and ministries. That doctrine is the idea that somehow, in some small way, "God needs us."

Let's think about that for a moment. Does God 'need' us? On the surface, such a statement should evoke in us the response 'of course not!.'  And yet churches on an almost weekly basis spread the idea that God 'created us for relationship with Him.'

I'm not sure where that idea comes from as it is not found anywhere in scripture to my knowledge or understanding. Moreover the statement suggests, in my mind, that God created us because He was, by implication, lacking something that only His creation could provide.

This immediately launches us into what I call the 'lonely God' idea. That somehow, in the pantheon of angels that the Lord created before us, even these were insufficient to keep Him company. Or that He likewise created the angels because the unity of His person, within the Divine Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was, likewise, insufficient for Him either.

All this is baloney. God needs NOTHING from us or from any part of His Creation. He is not dependent upon what He created but rather Creation is dependent upon Him. Nor did He, in ANY WAY a person can imagine, create us for 'a relationship with Him.'

This last bit is particularly galling to me for the simple reality that it is not truth in any way, and I challenge ANYONE to find Biblical evidence to suggest otherwise!  Indeed what it is is MARKETING; the pretty bow on a package called 'religion' that keeps people coming into churches who do not want to be told, day in and day out, that they need God, that they are evil, and need a saviour.

From these sorts of lies do we get God-less phrases like 'churched.' CHURCHED!  Not 'saved.' Not 'instructed.' Not 'discipled.' No, those words are, likewise, too hard on the soft ears of weak people bound for hell. No, better to make up a word, like 'churched' which means...what? Walking by a church? Walking in a church? Attending a service? How is anyone 'churched?'

The truth is that no one is 'churched' because it is not a real word. Like the doctrine or idea that God created us for a relationship with Him, it's baloney and marketing. Indeed Jesus never said 'go out and church the world.' He said make disciples of every nation (Matthew 28:19).

So why do this? Why make 'disciples of every nation?' Why does God want us to partake in a great work finished and begun at Calvary by His Son Jesus Christ our Lord? What, in short, does God need from us?

During a debate with a friend of mine much of these issues came up. Though I do not know for a fact that my friend is a Believer he brought up the single greatest dilemma that both those who are seeking answers to the questions 'why are we here' and "if God loves us, why does He send people to hell."

"Ah yes, the eternal Christ dilemma..." he said.  "If God is so eager for our friendship that he would enter our world, share our humanity, and bear our punishment on the cross, how could he feel it is appropriate to send anyone to endless judgment? I would sooner place my faith in Gandalf, Beowulf or Forrest Gump."

This may seem harsh in the ears of Christians but I cannot believe that this was my friend's intention. He was simply re-iterating what others have over the centuries since Jesus Christ's birth, death and resurrection, and I urge you to see it as that.

How does one reply to that though? My own assumption is that many would use the tired, false and childish line old lines about getting saved gets you a  'relationship with God' and 'God loves us and wants us saved.'

Aside from the fact that this is really not true and really, really stupid, it does not answer the legitimate question that my friend has, which is, to distill it down, 'If God loves us the world, why does He send people to hell?"

To answer that, many fall back on the other old trick of yammering about 'free will' which, again, is hard if not possible to prove in Scripture, if not utterly contradictory to it! That is often followed by the 'appeal' of Jesus dying to save us from our horrible fate too.

So now you have the typical Christian story; a sinful, willful, fallen race of beings facing damnation. A loving God reaching out to us through the death and suffer of His Son to save us because He "wants a relationship" with us.

Poor Jehovah! Wow. Breaks my heart to believe that there exists in Heaven a divine, holy, lonely being that is TRULY and UTTERLY PATHETIC! I mean, what kind of a LOSER GOD is it that makes His own Son die a horrible death so that He could save a bunch of WORTHLESS SINNERS who are RIGHT CANDIDATES FOR HIS WRATH? Because He's desperate to have a 'relationship' with them? Because he NEEDS them to have a relationship with them?

No offense but this is the worst, most God-less bunch a TRASH I can imagine. It is not worthy of our God, or of His divine nature, to even suggest it. And yet, THIS IS EXACTLY what is being preached, in subtle but similar ways, ALL OVER THE WORLD by weak preachers, in weak churches, trying desperately to keep their congregations and their  jobs while doing raising weak-minded and easily misled Christians; Christians who are not taught to think but to quote scripture with only a surface understanding!

Here's the punchline though, and one I shared with my friend too: 

1. "God doesn't need anything from us. Salvation is an expression of His holiness not his 'need' of us. He is not a 'lonely' God or any weak-Christian stuff you've been taught or led to believe. That's the problem with so-called 'churches' today; the weak God they serve is not my God or even the Biblical God. 
2. They make the Lord out to be a beggar instead of  holy being. They make salvation as a 'plea' for our souls because 'poor old Jehovah, He loves us and gosh, really REALLY wants to just be our buddy. So much so He let Himself be tortured and nailed to a cross!"
3. IT'S FREAKING BUNK! ALL OF IT! No wonder people turn from Him!  The fact is God is GOOD. We are saved by the reality of that fact ALONE and NOTHING ELSE!  The Lord is NOT some kind of codependent spiritual being!  HE IS HOLY and that is a concept few people can grasp, even though it says in the Bible that His ways are FAR ABOVE our ways. But we dilute that to make God 'appealing' to worldly people in the blind hope that they will some how 'take pity' upon God and believe in Him! 
4. Guess what, my friend (and I mean this sincerely)? IT'S ALL A BUNCH OF BALONEY! Guess also what? While God is not happy with people going to hell, it doesn't stop Him from sending them there! 
5. The Bible says "Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known." (Psalm 106:8). It also says "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake." (1 John 2:12). 
6. It doesn't say He saved them because He 'loved' them or "needed a friend." He did it because of WHO HE IS and THAT has ZERO, and NOTHING TO DO WITH US beyond the fact we are all sinners and ARE FACING DAMNATION apart from HIS GRACE.
7. So, yeah, don't expect God to come begging on Judgement Day for a friend as He damns people to hell with tears or something like it. It won't happen. His own Son died so we could avoid that fate and yet people reject, mock or spit at the idea. Fine with me and I'm sure it's fine with Him. Believe me, if someone turns their back on a gift, I won't go begging for them to take it; I'll give it to someone else. Or I'll keep it. But its important to know its MY GIFT. I bought it. No one deserves it. And if I give it, it's an expression of MY HEART and of who I AM; not  a bribe to make a friend because I'm some pathetic codependent sad sack like weak people and churches make God out to be! 
8. Like I said, IT IS ALL BUNK! Sadly people won't find out until they die and then it's too late. Peace."

This is the God I worship! This is the God I believe in. This is the God of the BIBLE! He is complete in and of Himself and always was! He created us because that is what a Creator DOES! He saved us because that is what A SAVIOUR DOES. In short GOD IS GOOD and HE DOES GOOD.

God is LOVE and He manifests that love in mercy to even vile creatures like us. But that goodness and love is EXTERNAL also to us. It existed and exists APART from us, NOT BECAUSE OF US!

If we are the bearers of that Goodness it is not because He 'needs' us or 'wants a relationship with us.' It is to bear witness to that because we are saved FOR HIS NAME'S sake. NOT OUR OWN or because we have something within us that He cannot provide for himself.

Indeed, even the love we have for God is a gift He puts in our hearts to give to Him. Faith, likewise, is a gift we receive from Him and that gift leads to salvation.

So does God need anything from us? NO. NOTHING. Not even 'relationships' as He has and has had a perfect relationship, including perfect love, perfect unity, and perfect harmony, within Himself in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. To suggest otherwise is blasphemy and I urge and pray that all churches engaged in such heresies to cease and desist in them and return to a proper understanding of the Lord and His Word too.

In Christ,
I.M. Ulysses.

God, the nature of Sin, and Salvation: A Reply to a satan-lover

By I.M. Ulysses.

This is a reply to Jesse Pagan on my a thread on the Equality House, pro-gay page on Facebook. I've add "and holy" in my reply here, created some paragraph breaks, as well as corrected the spelling in this version. Jesse's letter is below, in italics.

Reply To Jesse:
Sin pre-existing the Garden and yes in a mysterious way man's fall was ordained. We cannot truly know all the deep reasons set by God for His purposes. But before you condemn God for setting up a not win scenario please remember that He also sent His own Son to pay the penalty for sin. How does this make Him some kind of cosmic "abuser?" He could as easily condemned ALL mankind to damnation but chose, instead, to show mercy in that He Himself paid the penalty for sin, suffering physically and horribly that He may also redeem what was lost?

In this we see the glory of God not an "abuser" as per your false definition. It helps if you think of it in this way.
1) God is sovereign and holy
2) God is a Creator
3) God is just
4) God is merciful
5) God is all powerful

As a sovereign (and holy) God He has the right to do as He wills not as we like or expect Him to. We have no more right to exist than a piece of porcelain has to complain to us if we use some for fine China and others for a toilet. Both serve the purpose for which they were created and both reflect the sovereign will of the creator. Nuff said.

As a Creator God created all things for His purpose and glory. He even created evil because, like the toilet, it serves His purpose. Without evil, without darkness and death, the glory of "good" and of light and of life cannot be understood by the creation, the same way you could not know how remarkable you are or how flawed you are without the comparative opposite. Moreover if God is a creator does it not behoove a creator to make all things in creation, including even those things which are vile and wrong? It's a mystery, again, that He should do so but clearly, again, evil (as an idea) was also deemed necessary by God to be brought into His creation and for His sovereign purpose even if we do not know fully why.

As a Just God the Lord as a right to condemn and to save in accordance with His (not our) standards. Having brought evil into the universe He also judged it. He made a display of it before creation even so that all in creation may likewise see that this creation, this idea, is flawed for it seeks to steal and destroy all that God truly stands for, among them light and truth and love and life. Mankind was not a flawed creation for choosing the evil fruit else there would be no redemption possible for him. It was the devil that is and was flawed, for he was designed to manifest all that evil represents. This is why he was likewise in the Garden, that God might use him to reveal the utter consequence of sin when it is fully manifested. Having, therefore, manifest the nature of evil God, in turn, decided to manifest justice. But justice alone is not sufficient to understanding God. As a sovereign, holy God and creator He also determined to reveal the other aspect of Good, of Himself, really, which is mercy.

As a merciful God He has the power and the right to forgive sins and evil. Mercy is an attribute of Love and God reveals that He is love in that, though he had every right to destroy his creation when evil was manifest He chose to redeem it. In this way all creation may see His work, that it is not a lie, that the consequences of evil are dire, and why the very idea of evil, though created by God, is antithetical to good design and purpose of His other qualities. I this we know God fully, same as we know our parents in that they both loved and punished us who they created, not ( if they were good parents ) to torture us for their pleasure (for that would make them no better than rapists) but to teach us that we may be better stewards of the world they wished to leave for us. How much less can we say of God, who gave us His universe that we may dwell in it with Him and know Him better? How much more can we know and love God better? Indeed the angels rejoiced when Jesus was born because it signified the birth of mercy, the final atonement for mankind's sin that the creator Himself determined to pay the penalty of so that we can see our creator as both just and merciful and sovereign. For without justice there can be no mercy and without mercy then His creation is irredeemable and that makes God's work a fraud.

As a powerful God He brought all these things together for and by His will. You and I do not have to exist but He does for He preexisted us all. We are here at His pleasure, not he at ours. He is sovereign and holy not us. Can we make ourselves holy? If so, why couldn't Adam prevent his fall? Why could he not redeem himself apart from God? You foolishly call the destroyer and perverted of mankind a "protagonist" But a protagonist for what? All he does is corrupt and destroy for that is what he was designed for. The devil cannot make one holy any more than you can drink sand to satisfy your thirst. He didn't die on a cross to redeem mankind nor make available the mercy and love found at Calvary. He is a tool, designed to manifest the idea and consequences of evil and when God determines that the appointed time has come, both the devil and evil itself will not be wiped out of existence (God is a creator) but face HIS divine wrath and judgement forever...suffering for causing suffering and trying to destroy what He has made for His purposes.

You might think it unfair that this should be so. But you only say that because you exist at all and you, nor I, have a right to exist. It is only through God's pleasure that we do, so remember that and everything else before you accuse God and manifest the lies of the devil himself as you just have.
For you too are a tool and desire to serve your master the devil. He manifest the very suffering and lies he spoke to you. But you deem his lies the truth much as Eve did and thereby took mankind down the dark path we are on.

I adjure you to reconsider your words and repent. If you are elect you will and if not you won't. But until you know for truth your path this is your moment of distinction. Ask God and see if you are fine China or a toilet, for when judgement comes you will have no excuse; free will or not.
Question? Yes I question. But my answers come from the Bible and they are here for you know to examine as you are predisposed too or not. Peace.

Jesse Pagan's original post:

The whole concept of sin and salvation is such bs. If Genesis is true, sin is something that god did to us, not something we chose. If you pay attention, Adam and Eve never had free will - only the illusion of free will. If god is truly all knowing, then he knew how the temptation in the garden would play out all along. If everything was predestined, then Adam and Eve never actually had any choices - they were just acting out a script that was already written for them. It's all very sadistic, like being in an abusive relationship. The only protagonist in Genesis was the serpent and god is the biggest sinner in the bible. But, that's how scams work. Sin is an imaginary disease that was invented to sell you a magical cure. Why would you buy this crap If you weren't convinced that you needed it? Why would the victim in an abusive marriage stay with their abuser if they didn't think they needed them, or that they somehow deserved it? You won't understand, though - the bible stories aren't designed to be questioned, because they don't hold up under analytical thought. They are designed to be believed without question in order to sell you something.