Why did God create people, anyway?

Many Christians throughout the ages have struggled with the question ‘If God is self-sufficient, then why did He create people?’
Here are a couple of different possibilities why God created us:

1. God created people in order to have a relationship with us

• We know that God the Father is a relational being – after all, He lives in constant communion with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as well. The trinity is a complete entity which lacks nothing. We also know that when God created people in the Garden of Eden, He made us ‘in His image’ – He created us as relational beings as well

• It’s apparent that God made us in order to have a relationship – or to fellowship – with us. We demonstrate that we are His children through the relationships that we have with others as well, especially with other Christians

1. God created people in order to love us

• If you ask most Christians what they believe is the defining characteristic of God, they’ll say ‘love’. This is what Scripture teaches and what Christ demonstrated through His sacrifice for us on the cross. 1 John 4:8-10 tells us that ‘He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins’. John 3:16 says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’. Furthermore, John 15:13 says, ‘Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends’

• It’s likely that God created us in order to simply love us. He knew that we would sin even before we were born, but He loves us anyway. In order to redeem us from our sin, so that we might be able to spend eternity with Him as well, He demonstrated His love for us by dying on the cross as the payment for our sins

God’s desire to fellowship and love people does not stem from any weakness or flaw in His character. If God had never created us, He would not have been incomplete. He didn’t create us in order to make up for any deficiency within Himself. Instead, He created us simply to have a relationship with us and to love us.