Acts 17 Devotional

The God Who Needs Nothing

“Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”Acts 17:25 (BSB)

In Athens, Paul is deeply disturbed to see a city full of idols (17:16). The philosophers bring him to the Areopagus to explain his strange teaching. Paul starts with an altar dedicated to an unknown god and tells them who that God is (17:23).

He is the maker of the world and everything in it. He does not live in shrines built by people, and he is not served by human hands as though he needed anything, because he is the one who gives everyone life, breath, and all they have (17:24-25). That reverses the way religion usually works. We do not keep God going. He keeps us going. And he is close to every one of us (17:27). Paul ends with a call to repent, because God has set a day to judge the world through the man he appointed, and he has given proof of it by raising him from the dead (17:30-31). You come to this God first as someone who receives, not as someone who supplies.

To think about: In what ways do you approach God as if he needs something from you, rather than as the giver of everything you have?