Bennett writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, I recently read the following in a book, "God purposefully created the world to function in such a way that He is not enough for us. That is why God says it is not good for man to be alone. If God were all that Adam needed, then Adam would not be alone, but he is alone.

Not because God is there, but because one of his kind is not there. By choice, God limited his ability to be everything Adam needed. This flies in the face of what many of us have heard on a regular basis. I hear people say, 'All you need is God. God is enough.' Well, that sounds nice, but the problem is that it's not true or even biblical for that matter from a relational point of view.

If we're talking about grace, then these statements are true. God's grace is enough. However, if we're talking about relationships, they are not so." So, Pastor John, does Christian hedonism teach that God is enough to satisfy every relational longing of our souls, or has God created us with an intrinsic need for others that God cannot satisfy?

How would you answer Bennett on this question? That is an absolutely excellent question, and the reason it's an excellent question is that it grows out of a text. Genesis 2 18, "And the Lord God said, 'It's not good that a man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him.'" So on the face of it, God clearly does not want Adam to respond, 'No, thank you.

You've got it wrong, God. I am not alone. I have you!' So God thinks the present state of creation is not the final good that he intends, namely the man and the woman having God together. So having another human being is not a luxury in God's mind. So it seems Bennett's case here is pretty strong.

It looks like an overstatement to say to Adam in the garden, "God is all you need." And let's make the case stronger by adding a few other texts, like 1 Corinthians 12. "God arranged the members of the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body, the eye." So let's say Tony Reinke is the eye. "The eye cannot say to the hand," that's John Piper, "I have no need of you." Nor again, "The head can say to the feet, I have no need of you." So there's God Almighty in his words saying flat out, "You dare not say to another member of the body of Christ, 'I don't need you.'" That's a sin to talk like that.

In other words, God forbids us from saying, "I have God. I don't need members of the body of Christ." Lots of other examples could be cited. We're commanded to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." And we're told not to be anxious about food and about clothing because Jesus said—now mark these words— "Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all." So clearly, God created a material universe, not just a world of spirits, and He created other souls, not just one soul to relate to Him, and He created society and the church, not just isolated souls relating to Him.

And in doing all of this, creating the world, creating the church, creating society, He ordained that we be benefited by all these things and that some of them be essential for life—food, water, shelter, clothing, air— and others be essential for obedience, like love your neighbor as you love yourself.

You couldn't obey that command if there were no neighbors. You need a neighbor in order to obey the command, "Love your neighbor." So it's not wrong to talk about needing the neighbor in the sense that God has set it up that way. And all this is a result of God not creating just idolatry or occasions for idolatry, but creation.

He created these things. He created us with those kinds of needs that He Himself would meet only in the sense of giving them to us, but not being them for us. So, question, should we say, "God is enough," or "I don't need any more than God"? And there's a good reason why those statements stick in our craw.

I can tell they do by this question, and they do in mine. Why do they sound belittling to God when we say them, "God is not enough," or "I've got enough. I don't need God"? The reason is that one of the most important teachings of the Bible is that when all our human needs go unmet and we are utterly alone and on the brink of death, God will never fail us.

And in that moment, He will be enough. That's what we mean when we honor God by saying, "He's all I need." In other words, if all my needs fail to be met, He will never fail. That's the point of Romans 8:35, right? "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword.

The point of that list is that all those God-given needs—they're real needs for life and for obedience—all those God-given needs may fail. Famine may take food away. Nakedness may take clothing away. Sword may take life and limb away. In other words, every good and perfect gift that God has given us to need, in one sense, is being shown in this moment not to be needed ultimately.

No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors. Nothing can separate us from Christ. He is enough in that moment. That's why we feel like we're dishonoring Him if we say we don't need Him or we have other things that we need also, and He can't satisfy. Now, I emphasize in that moment because God is still committed to the world He created, and in the resurrection, He will give back what He has taken away in death.

He will have taught us in the moment of death to rely wholly on Him. Paul talks that way in 2 Corinthians 1, 8, and 9. Then, one more thing needs to be emphasized. Even in wife, food, church members, and all the other life-sustaining, life-enhancing needs that God gives us, He Himself remains the cream of all those pleasures, the way the Puritans talked.

When we have those pleasures rightly, we are enjoying God in and through wife and nature and wonders and food so that they're not really in competition with Him, and in one sense, we can say, "I have God in all those things, not just God in addition to all those things which satisfy me." So in the end, our need for people and our need for food becomes a way to say, "See, here I am in this gift, God says to us.

See, here I am in this gift. Do you see me? Do you enjoy me in this?" And so it turns out that God, in creating what is not God, created a world in which God Himself would be most fully known and most fully enjoyed. Amen. That is awesome. Thank you, Pastor John.

And if you, like Bennett, have a question for Pastor John, please email it in to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. We return tomorrow to look at one prayer you can pray for your family every single day. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow. You You