How does the self-existence of God influence the “feelings” of people? How does this make you feel? Does this teaching scare or comfort you? Does this attribute shock you or move you to wonder and adoration? Does this encourage you to obedience or leave you with the idea of giving up? Human beings are born dead in sins and trespasses. They do not love God by nature and are at enmity with Him (Rom 5:10). Man wants to rule his own life and the lives of others. Man wants independency and do it all by himself. He is at war with God over who will run his life and who will get the honor and glory for all that is done. In his pride man does not want God to rule over him and he thinks that he has the power to resist God. In a very real sense man either lives the life of Satan who is all about himself in opposition to God or is like God who lives in His people ruling them and all things by a perfect wisdom and holiness. Man wants free will to do as he pleases, but man is either ruled by the devil or by God.
How does the self-existence of God influence the “feelings” of people? How does this make you feel? Does this teaching scare or comfort you? Does this attribute shock you or move you to wonder and adoration? Does this encourage you to obedience or leave you with the idea of giving up? Human beings are born dead in sins and trespasses. They do not love God by nature and are at enmity with Him (Rom 5:10). Man wants to rule his own life and the lives of others. Man wants independency and do it all by himself. He is at war with God over who will run his life and who will get the honor and glory for all that is done. In his pride man does not want God to rule over him and he thinks that he has the power to resist God. In a very real sense man either lives the life of Satan who is all about himself in opposition to God or is like God who lives in His people ruling them and all things by a perfect wisdom and holiness. Man wants free will to do as he pleases, but man is either ruled by the devil or by God.
Hearing about the self-existence of God, then, strikes at the very heart of sin. In his pride and independence man does not want to think of a God who does all for His own glory and does not need man. Man wants to be needed and in his pride thinks that he is doing God a favor by going to church or being nice to people. But of course that is sin too since man is doing that out of selfishness and pride rather than love for God. However, when prideful man who wants to depend on himself for all things hears of God in His glory who is self-existent, self-sufficient with no need and so cannot be served, that makes man uncomfortable. The very struggle with this attribute shows the sinfulness of the heart of man.
When man hears of this great God in whom all things exist and have their beings, it hits him hard. When he hears that his very breath is given to him by God, he might even begin to panic. He wonders how this can be. This would mean that God can take his life at any moment. This means that God is in control and not man. If God has no need and cannot be served, what can man do to manipulate God or to make up for past sins? How uncomfortable man is when he sees that he is in the hands of a sovereign God who does not need him and that he can do nothing for this great God. That is enough to make man nervous.
But what happens to the believer when he hears of God in this manner? This is true meat for the heart of the believer. He has already seen himself as a recipient of grace and knows that he cannot have saved himself. But now he sees that he had nothing to do with earning any part of his salvation or of any favor with God. He sees with relish that salvation is all of grace and is all to the glory of God (Eph 1:3-14; 2:1-10). This person now delights in his own helplessness because he can now live by grace and focus on the life of God in his own soul. This person now knows by experience that he is upheld in grace by the hand of God and not by his own so-called goodness and works. He knows now what it means to be strengthened by grace (Heb 3:9) and to labor according to His power which mightily works within (Col 1:29).
This moves the believer to confidence and so to die to self even more. The believer loves God and wants to do all things for the glory of God (I Cor 10:31). Before he thought that what he did glorified God, but now he sees that it is the love of God for His own glory in him that glorifies God. He now knows that it is not his hard labor in doing works in the name of Christ, but his dying to self and self-strength so that the love of God for His own glory would be in him and work through him. He now knows that he does not have to argue to the death with people over theology and the Bible, but he can discuss things with truth and power because it is God who is at work in him. How free the believer is who begins to understand that it does not all depend on him, but that he must depend on God alone on whom all things in reality depend.
The heart of the believer is comforted by this since he knows that God will uphold him until his work on earth is done. He can have comfort knowing that he is to love his enemies and trust in God who upholds the breath of those enemies. He can do evangelism boldly because the work is truly God’s and men are born through the work of the Scripture and the Spirit rather than man’s self-centered efforts. How freeing it is for the believer to live in light of the glory of God’s self-existence and self-sufficiency. To believe in anything less than a self-existent and self-sufficient God is really another religion and another God. How abominable it is for people to water down the biblical teaching of God in order to feel better about themselves and their so-called freedom.
God Loves... Himself 
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