Acts 17 “God’s Desire”
“God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out
for Him and find Him” (v.27)
In today’s passage, Paul is giving a speech in Athens, a city
filled with idols (v.16). He got the attention of some local
philosophers–Epicureans and Stoics, and stressed to them the distinction
between being religious and knowing the true God. He detailed how the “Unknown
God”, which they built an altar to, was the one true God who created the heavens and the
earth (vv. 23-24).
This God, he continued, is not “served by human hands” (v.25).
In other words, God does not need us in order to survive. He made us and made
the world—what could He need? Yet, in this passage, Paul revealed what God
desires. God made all of this “so that men
would seek him” (v.27). God loves us but He does not manipulate our minds
and hearts. He made us with the capacity of choice, and it is His desire that
we would want to know Him, to find Him, and to have a relationship with Him.
Our heritage, from the beginning, is directly linked to the
divine Creator. It is natural, then, that since we are God’s offspring, we will
want to find our image in Him. Only in God, not in our own accomplishments, can
we find the source of our true identity. For we are His children, His handiwork, His poem. “For in him we live and move and have our being” (v. 28).
The cure for all mans troubles is found in His desire - Seek Me.
The cure for all mans troubles is found in His desire - Seek Me.
The Truth
“The Lord
looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who
understand, who seek God.” (Psalm 14:2)
