Glorify! Various definitions of this word include the following: to worship, to exalt, to adore and to give glory, honor and the highest praise. Of course, as Christians we know our purpose is to glorify God. It’s our reason of existence. God says is Isaiah 43:7 “Bring all who claim me as their God, for I have made them for my glory. It was I who created them.” God created us for a distinct purpose. Despite knowing this, many times we seek to bring glory to ourselves rather than to God or we flat out choose what we want or desire instead of choosing to glorify God. Because the reality is that it’s not natural for us to glorify God. It goes against our sinful nature. Glorifying God requires discipline, prayer, strength (that only comes from Him) and most importantly a deep devoted love for Him.
Problem number one…How many times a day do we seek to make much of ourselves? We want to present the perfect presentation to fellow employers so they will think highly of us, we want to be the best athlete so people will know our name, we want to bake most delicious cake so our cooking skills will be admired etc. Don’t misunderstand me here. Striving to make a good presentation or to be a good athlete or chef are not bad things. It’s the motivation behind it. Do we desire to bring glory to ourselves or to the Lord? Does the thought ever cross our mind that we want to do the best we can do in all things so that only God will receive the glory? I recently read about a man who pastored a church and worked with orphans in England. During his sixty years he cared for more than ten thousand orphans. He never once asked for money to support himself, his ministry or the orphans. He simply prayed. He had faith. He depended on the Lord. Not surprisingly, God provided all he and the children needed. He claims his reason for doing this is so that only God would be able to receive the glory and show that He still hears prayers. He lived his life in a way that never sought glory or praise for himself but only for the Lord and for that He was blessed.
Of course it’s easy to depend on ourselves in the culture we live in. Our skills provide our job that provides our income that provides our house etc. We are the source of our dependency. However, in reality it’s our God-given skills that provide our God-given job that provides our God-given Income that provides our God-given house etc. God is and should be acknowledged as the source of our dependency. We must correct our false beliefs and place a daily dependency on the Lord for all things. It is from Him all blessings flow and it is He who can give and take away.
Indeed God will bless us when honor Him but this truth becomes crooked when we do so in order to receive something. Throughout our lives we often hear “I’ll give you this if you give me that”, “I’ll do this if you buy me that”, and “I’ll go with you if you promise me this”. We tend to do or give something only if we get something out of it. It’s all about give and take. So if we choose to honor and bring glory to God only to receive His blessing, somewhere we have gone wrong. We are no longer giving Him glory simply because of who He is and what He deserves but because who we are and what we want. We have made it about us instead of about Him.
Problem number two…we blatantly choose to satisfy our flesh in spite of knowing there is no glory brought to God through doing so. We often rationalize and justify our actions and almost always when we do this we know deep down it is wrong. We decide to deny the fact that we are mere human beings engulfed by weakness, therefore, rejecting the forgiveness of God. We curse at a person who cut us off on the highway knowing that the bible says be slow to anger. We rationalize it because it wasn’t our fault. We seek revenge to those who have done us wrong knowing that God is the Judge and the bible says to love your enemies. We justify our revenge by the need to teach them to no longer “sin” that way again or at least towards us. We have sex with our partner knowing the bible says to wait until marriage. Yet we justify doing so because we love that person. We decide to go get drunk knowing it is a sin but rationalize it because we are stressed and are in need of a good time. There are two things we are all experts at: sin and rationalization. Satisfying our flesh “with reason” instead of choosing to glorify God. We like the idea of bringing glory to God and we even pray that we will daily do so yet when the time comes choose, we repeatedly choose the easy route of giving into our sinful nature.
So how do we get to the point where we choose and strive to glorify God over satisfying our flesh? To make much of Him and less of us? Love. Mark 12:29-30 says “The most important commandment is this…You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.” Jesus doesn’t accidentally say something. He doesn’t make mistakes. He knew exactly what he was saying when He said this is the greatest commandment. He knows that with obedience to this commandment, obedience to other commandments will be the result. With love comes the desire to glorify Him through obedience. God who is holy and perfect sent Himself to die for us: weak, disgraceful, selfish, sinful humans who in no way deserve a Savior but desperately need a Savior. His love demonstrated on the cross should be enough of a reason to wholeheartedly live our lives in pursuit of denying the world and in pursuit of glorifying Him due to a reverent love we possess for our Savior. Glorify - the reason we were created, the only thing he asks of us and the only way we can respond to the Cross.
The truth of the matter is no matter how strongly we desire and hard we try to bring glory to God, we fail. We fail time and time again. However, hallelujah that He is a God who is quick to forgive and has more patience and we can imagine. His mercy never runs dry.
“If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 4:11
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