"Life is hard. After all, it kills you." Katherine Hepburn said that. Most of us don't expect the life of a movie star to be hard, but she evidently found that it was.
Woody Allen said, "Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable."
George Santayana said, "That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions." Think about that for a minute. It says that we cannot find any evidence that life is worth living, but we desperately need it to be so.
When asked if he was happy, Charles de Gaulle replied, "What do you take me for, an idiot?"
Life is hard. It is full of work, boredom, difficulty, pain, and stress, with death at the end. In the face of this grim picture, people need, consciously or unconsciously, to find meaning or purpose in life, to give them a reason to endure through the problems of living. They need something to live for.
Some people live for pleasure. They find that, while the times of pleasure may outnumber the times of pain (if they are fortunate), the times of neither pain nor pleasure - of monotony and tedium - outnumber all other times. As a reason to live, pleasure doesn't work very well.
Some live for the pride of owning things. They find that, no matter how much they have, there is always more that they don't have, and there is always someone else who has things that they don't have. As a reason to live, pride of possession doesn't work very well.
Some live to build something that will outlast themselves, perhaps a name or a structure or an organization, as a monument to their existence. But what one generation builds, the next may well destroy. As a reason to live, building something to last into the future doesn't work very well.
Some live for power. Some even get power. But even the most powerful can lose their power, sometimes overnight. Even if they don't lose their power, they die, their funeral comes and goes, and their power is gone - vanished as if it had never been. As a reason to live, power doesn't work very well.
Some have nothing that they live for. They have no purpose, no reason to endure the pain and tedium that life inevitably brings. They have nothing to give their life meaning; they are merely killing time until the day they die.
None of these reasons give our lives any real meaning, nor can we find real fulfillment or satisfaction within them. Never the less, there is one place (and only one) where you can find real meaning and purpose in life. You can find them in a close, personal relationship with the living God. Other reasons to live simply do not work, because they don't reflect who God created us to be - people with a relationship to Himself. If you are missing this personal relationship with God, the rest of this page won't do much for you. Instead, I highly recommend that you read this page. (If you would prefer a language other than English, go here.)
The apostle Paul put it this way:
"according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death." (Philippians 1:20)
In glorifying (exalting) God, Paul found something to live for that transcended death.
Paul thought that glorifying God should be what we live for, too. "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (I Corinthians 10:31)
"For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." (I Corinthians 6:20)
In both of these passages, Paul is talking about other issues than reasons to live - meat sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality, respectively. These areas have little in common, other than asking, "how should we live our lives?" But Paul places glorifying God as the touchstone, common to both areas, by which we can test what we should do. When a purpose or objective is your basis for deciding what you should and should not do, it is de facto what you live for. For instance, when you decide what you will do by what will bring you the most pleasure, you are living for pleasure. Paul, then, is asking us to live to glorify God.
The Westminster Catechism affirms this truth, "The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."
God is the only source of real meaning and joy, and He has created us to find these only through a relationship with Himself. As we seek to place Him at the center of our lives, as we seek to live for His glory, our lives take on real meaning, and we experience real joy.
However, there is a better reason to glorify God with our lives than just our own personal gain. We should live to glorify Him because He is utterly worthy to receive glory.
God is worthy to receive glory because of His perfect holiness and righteousness. "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy; For all the nations will come and worship before Thee, For Thy righteous acts have been revealed" (Revelation 15:4). God is totally good, totally pure, completely unstained by sin, utterly holy, and perfectly righteous. When you see the moral purity and beauty of God's nature, should you not glorify Him, simply for who He is?
In addition, God is worthy to receive glory because He is the Creator of everything else. "Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created" (Revelation 4:11). All the glory for everything in creation belongs to God, since He made it all. When you see the incredible beauty of creation and the unbelievable intricateness, detail, and interconnectedness of it, should you not glorify the Creator of it?
God the Son is also worthy to receive glory because of His death for us. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing" (Revelation 5:12, see also Revelation 5:9). When you see the horrible agony of His death, understand the tremendous depth of love for you that motivated His sacrifice of Himself, and experience the freedom and joy of the new life His death bought for us, should not the response of your heart be to give Him glory?
Until we understand what God's glory is, we probably will have a hard time living so as to give it to Him. According to The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology[1], there are three main ways that "glory" is used in the Bible.
First, it is used for God's physical radiance. For example, Exodus 24:16,17 says,
"And the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud. And to the eyes of the sons of Israel the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the mountain top."
(See also Exodus 40:34,35, Numbers 14:10, II Chronicles 5:14, and Revelation 21:23).
Of course, it is impossible for me to glorify God in this way, because nothing I can do will add anything to His physical radiance. Even if I strap an atom bomb to my chest and detonate it, that burst of the bomb's radiance, no matter how brilliant, would not add to God's radiance at all.
Second, "glory" is used for God's character, for His moral purity and perfection. For example, Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (See also John 1:14.)
Again, I cannot glorify God in this way, because nothing I do can make God more morally perfect or improve the purity of His character. He's already pure, already perfect, and I can't do anything to make Him more pure and perfect. However, if He is transforming me into His image, I can live a life that displays something of His character, and so reflect His glory for others to see.
Third, "glory" is used for God's standing or value in people's eyes. For example, Jeremiah 13:11 says, "'For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me', declares the Lord, 'that they might be for Me a people for renown, for praise, and for glory, but they did not listen.'"
I can try to glorify God in this way by encouraging others to hold Him in high esteem. Even if others don't respond, I certainly can glorify God by giving Him high standing in my own eyes, whether or not anyone else notices or approves.
The Bible lists some specific things that glorify God: verbal praise (Psalm 22:23, 29:2, 86:9, Romans 15:9), acknowledging what God did (Matthew 9:8), believing God (Romans 4:19-21), the proper exercise of spiritual gifts (I Peter 4:11, Matthew 5:16), faithfulness in ministry (II Corinthians 8:19,23), sexual purity (I Corinthians 6:18-20), Peter's death as a martyr (John 21:19), and Lazarus' sickness, death, and resurrection (John 11:4).
When we combine these specifics with the definition of glorifying God (placing high value on Him), a general principle emerges: We glorify God when we say, by our words and actions, that He is more important than we are, and that what He wants is more important than what we want.
This principle should affect every area of our lives.
In the arena of moral choices, it means choosing God's way rather than our way, obeying Him rather than sinning.
I never have enough time. Almost nobody has enough time - not even my father, who is retired. There is always more that we want to do than there is time in which to do it. Glorifying God means laying aside what we want to do - or feel that we need to do - in order to do what He wants us to do. This means more than just giving up control of our "to do" list. It also at times may mean stopping "doing" entirely, stepping away from all the hustle and busyness and time pressure to just spend some time with God, worshipping and praising Him and walking with Him. (God Himself is more important than anything we could do for Him. Sometimes we show His importance by what we do for Him, but always we should show it by choosing to walk in fellowship with Him.)
I also never seem to have enough money. Most other people don't, either, including many millionaires. Glorifying God also means laying aside what we want (or feel we need) to do with our money, in order to do what He wants with His money. That may mean not buying something on which we have really set our heart, demonstrating that He is more important than our desires and cravings.
Glorifying God means having faith in Him - not just believing that He will save and forgive us (Acts 16:31, I John 1:9), but also believing that He can satisfy our needs and desires better than we can (and, in fact, that He Himself is ultimately the satisfaction of our needs and desires).
Viewed in this light, adversity, problems, difficulties, and troublesome situations are not particularly alarming. Rather, they are opportunities to glorify God in a way that we couldn't before. It's easy to trust God - or say you do - when you have money in the bank, but you far more clearly show how much God is worth to you when you obey Him by giving five dollars at His direction - and you only have six. It's easy to praise God when everything is going well, but you place Him in a much higher position when you praise and worship Him while you are in difficulty and pain. It's easy to give God your time when you have so much of it that you are bored, but you give Him much higher standing in your life when you give Him time while you feel absolutely buried by the urgent demands pulling at you. (I still have a long way to go in terms of choosing to use adversity to glorify God.)
Glorifying God does not mean that we spend every moment saying, "Glory to God!", though verbal praise should characterize our lives. It means that we should spend every moment with our lives saying, "Glory to God!" to those who can hear. And you can be sure that God can hear. (Others may well misunderstand, but God sees and appreciates the motives of the heart. For an example, see Matthew 26:6-13.)
Glorifying God does not mean doing our will for His glory - or doing our will for our glory in His name. Glorifying God is done in humility rather than in pride, in submission rather than in self-important assertiveness.
Glorifying God does not mean driven-ness or legalism. It comes from awe, adoration, and love, not from slavery to duty.
Glorifying God does not mean an emotional thrill or "high". While glorifying God will sometimes evoke deep emotions, we place high value on God primarily by how we choose to live and think, not by what we feel.
Glorifying God does not mean keeping score, seeing how many points we can rack up, as if glorifying God were a video game. Glorifying God is about His nature and His worthiness, rather than how much we can do for Him.
Glorifying God does not mean religious activity. Although it does include our activity, glorifying God is in its essense a matter of the attitude of our hearts. Without this, all our activity is mere busyness. But with this attitude, anything we do - singing praise and worship to God or cleaning up where the dog had an accident on the carpet - we can do to the glory of God.
I sometimes run the sound system at our church. It used to bother me that I couldn't pour my heart into the songs of worship because my attention was on the sound system. Then someone pointed out to me that running the sound system can be just as much an act of worship as singing is. When running sound, I now try to worship and glorify God by running sound for Him and with my heart set on Him. I'm still working on maintaining this perspective - and I must confess that I really struggle with keeping my heart focused on glorifying God while cleaning up the carpets.
Perhaps you find that your life does not glorify God as well as you would wish. Perhaps you find it difficult to truly maintain the attitude (and related actions) that give God high standing in your life. How do you do better?
The journey begins, appropriately enough, with what God does. When we become Christians, God gives us a whole new nature "which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth" (Ephesians 4:24; see also II Corinthians 5:17). That is, the new nature that God has created in us reflects the glory of God's moral perfection. For the rest of our lives, He continues the process of conforming us to His likeness (II Corinthians 3:18). This is vital, "because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:7,8). Without God transforming us, we do not have within ourselves the ability to give God high standing in our lives, nor do we have the desire to do so, since we are at enmity with Him.
(Unbelievers can glorify God, within limits, by acknowledging and respecting His power and authority - for example, see Revelation 11:13, Matthew 5:16, Philippians 2:11, and I Peter 2:12 - but they cannot truly give God high standing in their lives while simultaneously refusing to surrender their lives to His sovereign authority. Neither can Christians living in sin or rebellion.)
God also works through us. An old hymn exhorts us to "give of our best to the master", and so we should. But God working through us can produce what is far beyond our best - what is humanly impossible (such as the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22,23; see also II Corinthians 4:6-11). Then God is glorified, not because all these fabulously healthy, strong, talented people give Him the credit, but because He uses people like us - broken, weak, highly ordinary people - in ways that are far beyond us, so that the glory clearly belongs to God because it so obviously does not belong to us.
What then should we do? First, we must confess and forsake every sin God's Spirit convicts us of. Sin, in essence, is attempting to meet our own needs in our own way, apart from God. It is antithetical to the attitude of glorifying God, where His will is considered most important, and where He is depended upon to meet our needs in His way and time. Confessing, then, means agreeing with God that our sin is wrong, that we should follow His will and His way, rather than our own. Forsaking means that, in the area in question, we turn away from our own will and way in order to follow God's.
Second, we need to allow God to control our lives. When we become Christians, God places His Spirit in our hearts (Galatians 4:6, Ephesians 1:13,14, I Corinthians 6:19, Romans 8:9). God's indwelling presence in our lives is not merely a theology to be believed; it is a daily reality to be lived. This means walking with God in each moment, enjoying His presence in our hearts and in our lives, experiencing His deep and undying love for us, and surrendering ourselves to His presence and power, for Him to live out His life in us and through us.
In Ephesians 3:16, Paul prayed, "that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man." God's Spirit dwelling in us is the power source for our spiritual lives. As we surrender our lives to Him and allow Him to live in and through us, He will produce in us the attitudes that glorify God, and He will produce through us the actions that glorify God.
By our own effort, we are unable to truly glorify God, due to our human weakness and sinfulness. But God can and will produce in us that which glorifies Himself, if we surrender ourselves to His control. Let us, then, in each moment allow Him control of our lives, so that in each moment our lives may glorify Him!
What can we do if we don't feel the desire to live our lives to glorify God? We can often change our feelings by dwelling on God's nature, by filling our minds with the beauty of who He is. This continually reminds us of how worthy He is of all of our lives, and often creates in us the desire to live for His glory.
We can ask God to create this desire in our hearts.
And in each moment, we can choose to surrender our lives to God, for Him to do His will in and through us, whether we feel like it or not.
A word of caution is in order here. Choosing to glorify God by choosing to surrender our lives to His control works very well; choosing to glorify God by choosing to exert ourselves to do so does not work. Our effort makes a poor foundation for glorifying God, because the focus turns to us - to what we do, rather than to the God we do it for.
I decided, "I'm going to live for God's glory!" I was deciding what goal I was going to exert myself to pursue. The goal was worthy, but my internal focus was still (even if subconsciously) on me - on what I was going to do. In less than a week - and without conscious effort - that good intention degenerated into totally living for myself, my will, and my desires.
Then I tried again, with more determination. Within a month, this second attempt mutated into legalism.
What went wrong? In both cases, I was honestly trying to live for God's glory, but I was using my own human effort to do so.
Then, I decided to let God control my life, to let Him produce in me that which glorifies Him. As I did so, I became more aware of how often (much too often) I was living unsurrendered to God's control, and I became more desirous of yielding those times to Him. I also grew in my awareness of God's presence and love in my daily life. This produced in me praise, worship, and love for God.
Having said this, I must admit that I am not yet very good at submitting myself to God's control of my life. Growing in this area will be a lifelong process. But I have come far enough to see that this road will lead me to a life that more and more glorifies God.
Romans 13:14 says, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts." Christ lives in our hearts. Rather than trying to live life in my own power, I should choose to put Him on, to let Him live through me. When I do so, my life reflects God's glory to those around me. I also glorify Him directly by choosing to place His will for (and His control of) my life at this moment ahead of my own will and control.
God Himself dwells inside us. Let us allow Him to live through us, to His glory.
[1] Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Baker Book House, 1984, Walter A. Elwell, editor. Article on glory by E. F. Harrison.
Copyright 1999 by Mike Stimpson. Permission is freely granted to make and distribute full copies of this article, provided that they are not for profit or commercial use.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright© 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.