What if there was a religion, where you could serve God – and not have a fear of punishment?
What if there was a religion where God needed you? What if the religion said God needed you more than you needed him?
What if there was a religion where God wanted you to do something for Him?
We already know what it means for God to be perfect – it means He has no needs. But many people think we are here to serve him. So if God has no needs, how can we serve him? How can you do anything for God if He has no needs?
Look at the very first words of the Torah:
In the beginning, God made Heaven and Earth.
:בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ
In the beginning, God made – What? Why? –
Halfway through the first line of the Torah and there’s an issue.
A lot of people think that because God is perfect, he therefore doesn’t need anything. And that’s true, God doesn’t need any thing. God didn’t make the world for things. But he still made the world. Which means, beyond imagination or understanding, God wants us.
“In the beginning, God made Heaven and Earth” tells us one clear thing: being perfect, and alone, is unacceptable.
God doesn’t need anything. He made the world for who’s, not what’s. He doesn’t need a thing – he needs a who.
He needs you.
And how can God need you? Because God is perfect.
If God wasn’t perfect, then there would be a reason why he wanted to make us. Maybe it was because he was bored, maybe it was for kindness, like doing us a favor. Or maybe it was for relationship, so that we can know Him, or for worship, so that we could praise Him.
If God was bored, couldn’t He have just made a thousand worlds with a thousand gods? Creating us wasn’t out of kindness, it wasn’t a favor, because we weren’t even around. There was no favor to be given. If it’s for worship or relationship, wouldn’t angels have been enough? After all, angels don’t have free choice, they’re made to worship Him. If the purpose of life was all about the Messiah, couldn’t God have just made the world in it’s perfect form from the beginning?
As it turns out, only a perfect God can love us unconditionally.
You see, all of those reasons are things that could have been accomplished in some other way, with no need for us. But that’s not the case! That’s not what creation is! We’re here! It’s us.
This is what it means to be made in His image: to try and love unconditionally.
That’s what marriage is about. Unification. Trying to emulate loving another with no conditions. We don’t marry for looks, or money or happiness. Those are reasons, those are other goals. If that’s what you’re marrying for, you’re not marrying the person for the person. You’re marrying her for something other than herself.
The same with יהוה (God). If God is perfect then that means God loves you unconditionally – because God has no needs! There is no ulterior motive.
From the very beginning, Torah is trying to tell you something we would never guess on our own.
In the beginning, God made Heaven and Earth.
:בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ
There is no reason. God just wants…
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