You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased. – (Revelation 4:11 NLT-SE)
There is also a very personal application found in this verse in the fact that God created what He desired and what pleased Him. This means that, as Creator, He has deep desire for His creation because it was created out of desire. It was not an accident, nor something from which God is emotionally removed, but rather God has intimate desire for each thing He created. Though so much of creation is necessarily under judgment because of sin, creation still exists because God desired it and because He created things that gave Him pleasure. Properly understanding this gives us both confidence and a high vision for the way we live.
Understanding that we were created for His pleasure gives us boldness and confidence before the throne of God. So long as we were bound in sin, we were enemies of God but, because He desired what He created, He was not content with man’s sin and made a way of salvation. Therefore, if we are right standing with God, having repented of sin, believed in Jesus, and received salvation, understanding that we exist and were created because God desired us enables us to stand before God with great confidence (see Hebrews 4:16).
Knowing that we exist because of His desire gives us strength to overcome the lies of the enemy because the evil one will constantly try to drive a wedge of separation between us and God and one of His most common attacks is in this area of confidence in our position before God. When we are lost in sin, we are right to have no confidence before the throne because of our rebellion, but when we have come into repentance and salvation, we can stand in confidence knowing that our very existence is not something that was accidental or something that has no relation to the desire of God’s heart, but rather our very existence is for the pleasure of God.
Not only does this gives us confidence, but it should also give us a high calling and vision for our lives. If we were created for His pleasure, then we must ask the question, are we living in such a way to give Him pleasure? In other words, do we connect to the reality of this verse to the way we live in a tangible and material way. Do we sit before God and consider the things that give Him pleasure? Do we live our life before Him with the constant desire that our lives give pleasure to Him or are we so self absorbed that we see God only as a vehicle that we can use for the pursuit of our own pleasure? Sadly, many fall into this trip and use God for feelings of peace, an escape from hell, or to obtain prosperity in some way. In reality, this is a very low vision for life because it is essentially a self absorbed life, and it is also dangerous because the self absorbed life always leads our hearts into the bondage of sin. Saints, we have a much higher calling and that is to a life that gives God pleasure.
This is not merely an abstract idea, but a reality and we can live in such a way that God receives pleasure from our lives. Not only can we give Him real pleasure, but our own hearts will feel the reality of His pleasure. Tragically, the deception of this age has obscured the reality of what true pleasure actually is. So many are in deception believing that real pleasure is found in pleasing self and therefore most individuals are completely self absorbed. In reality, the highest pleasure is found in living for God’s pleasure and then experiencing His pleasure upon us. Living for the pleasure of God is a high calling, while living for our own pleasure is a low and base calling. Living for God’s pleasure will lead us to beauty, purity, holiness, and joy. Living for our own pleasure will lead to selfishness, sin, and bondage.
Not only is living for God’s own pleasure a high calling, it is actually the way to experience the heights of human pleasure. The reality is that man was made for God and there is no way we can escape this reality. No matter how far we run or rebel, we were made for God. Because of this, our highest fulfillment and pleasure is found only in living for God in communion with Him. It is not enough for us to live in the same universe with God and seek our own pleasure, we were made to live under Him in constant communion with Him that we might reflect Him. When we live in this intimacy we experience the highest and deepest pleasures (Psalm 16:11). When we reject this, we become subject to all sorts of deception and come under the bondage of sin and self.
Thanks so much for this– it was something I really needed to read. May God bless you!
When God created us for His own pleasure, for us to worship Him, wasn’t that selfish of Him?
Wilhelmina,
That’s a good question and the short answer is “no” it wasn’t selfish of Him. I have an uncompleted book on worship that deals with this subject in detail, but I’ll try to provide just a few concise points.
I know so many people have had a rough family situation and cannot relate to this illustration, but let me try to give you an analogy. In a loving marriage, a man and a woman naturally want to have a child. Having this child gives them great pleasure. I can tell you as a parent, then interacting with my children and watching them grow up gives me great pleasure. That pleasure is not selfish in any way though. I experience pleasure by providing what they need for life and interacting with them.
In fact, it is a self-sacrificing pleasure because they take a lot of my time and resources that would otherwise be available for myself. It takes labor and effort on my part to provide for them, but it is pleasurable and, in it all, I seek their highest pleasure. God is no different. The great revelation of the cross is God’s self-sacrificing nature. He experiences pleasure in His creation, but He also gives of Himself for that creation. He experiences pleasure by providing for their ultimate pleasure. The primary point of this post was to understand that you didn’t randomly come into existence. There was pleasure in God’s heart when you came into existence and He desires that you experience more of His pleasure by living in close relationship with Him.
Our problem is that we are so fallen and insecure that we desire worship and attention to validate who we are and feed our egos. God does not have that problem. He is very secure in who He is. If He was not, He would act dramatically different.
It is a little simplistic to say that He created us just to worship, but it is true that worship is a prime function of humanity. However, that worship is not to feed God’s ego, but is rather the invitation of God. Whenever we worship, what we are doing is looking at something or someone and proclaiming that it is good and desirable. We truly worship when we desire to be like what we are gazing at. For example, men constantly worship football because they look at players and, in their hearts, what they are saying is that those men are the height of physical perfection. Deep down what they are saying is that they wish they could be like that. True worship happens when we desire to be like the thing we are worshipping and praising. We worship famous or rich people because we wish we could be like them.
Worship then is God’s invitation. First consider God’s attributes. He is perfect. He is self-sacrificing. He is love. He doesn’t just have love, He is the very fire of love. He’s willing to sacrifice Himself at great cost for others. I could go on and on. Now, if He is the height of perfection, He must call us to worship Him because that perfection should become our desire. In other words, we should desire Him and therefore desire to be like Him. When we truly worship, we will desire to be self-sacrificing. We will desire to be full of love.
God doesn’t need worship like men do. He is inviting us to worship because the best thing for creation is for His character to be upheld as the standard that all should be pursuing. Likewise, He desires that we become like Him in our character and nature by worshipping Him and consider His perfection as the highest perfection and what we want to see in our own hearts. If all men worshipping in that way, what a glorious world we would have!
Anyway, feel free to dialogue more. I could write much more on this topic, but hopefully these few sentences will help you consider the issue of worship more.
God bless u for this wonderful piece.
Wow! It feels so awesome to see and hear the truth in love. This is the heart, voice and tone He has been speaking to me. This is an in time teaching even though this is my first time reading this and being on this site. Confirmation from the Lord!