What God wants out of me.

We’ve known since creation that God is triune. He said, “let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). So where does the notion of a needy, demanding, solitary God come from?

Our own imaginations. For a sinful person like me, the notion of a demanding, solitary God comes in handy. Because I’m afraid of that kind of God—and I hate what he might want to get out of me. It’s a great excuse to stay away from him, to hide inside myself, to be left alone with the god I actually worship, namely, me.

But the real God is triune: a singular Be-ing in three living persons who love one another with omnipotent tenderness and infinite joy. He is forever fulfilled; we are not. He is infinitely full; we are empty. We are isolated; He is triune. And he’s very near.

The only thing the real God wants to take out of me is my ignorance and delusions and sin, and the source of every sin which is my isolated addiction to myself.

The only thing the triune God wants to get out of me is me! So that I may know Him and enjoy Him forever!

Paraphrased and adapted from Sermon by Rev. R.M. Hintze.