Sunday, July 29, 2012

To Give God Glory

What does this mean? It sounds so intimidating and beyond us. I was try thinking of examples of people bringing God glory and it's hard. I think most of the time I would use the phrase to describe someone doing something and then giving God the credit. As in, "I worked really hard at something and now that I've accomplished it, I must tell you that it was really God all along." Of course, this truth cannot be disputed. Only the person in question will know whether this was really true in their heart. This brings us to the place where giving God glory is determined: the heart. You can go to church, sing, serve, work, dance in a circus, love your wife, and give to the poor and say that it's all for God's glory but how can we tell that's really true? There's two options: either you are telling the truth and your heart-desire really was to glorify God or else you are paying lip service to God when really your heart-motive was focused on yourself. The only way we could tell for sure is if we're in a trusting relationship with you and you disclose your motives to us. We know our own heart-motives though and so I think each of us has to look inward for ourselves and see things for what they really are.

Notice how we try to squirm out of this using a number methods though. Sometimes we prefer apathy. We say that we're overthinking things and who can really have perfect motives all the time? So we hide from truly examining our heart. Sometimes we prefer busyness and we just keep our lives so filled with activity that we never take time to examine our hearts. Sometimes we compare ourselves to others and since we do more good things than others or maybe even have "better" motives than others, we don't take time to examine our hearts. Lastly and worst of of all, we can prefer to just plain fool ourselves by redefining God's glory into something less than it is. We lower the bar so that our current heart-motives are satisfactory.

If prayer is coming to God with our hearts and we get in this habit, how could we ever claim to come to God truly as we are and as a result, how could he ever truly meet us in our hearts? I experienced this in a personal way recently. I was disgusted as I realized how squirmy I was with letting God truly have my heart. I didn't want to be vulnerable. I didn't want to give him my heart unless I knew what he was going to do with it. Most of all though, I was afraid he would kill and put to the death all the things that my flesh holds on to for comfort (friendships, my plans for the future, my future career path, timing, etc.). This is the place of surrender and it where's I found myself. I began to pray that I would live a life devoted to giving God glory. Something began to break inside of me as I prayed and I felt a sharp pain in my heart. I wanted to shrink from it but I wanted to hold myself there because I felt like something was dying in my heart that I was really sick of having there. Afterwards, I felt a very real desire growing that yes, I did want to bring God glory. Since then it works like this. I get into situations and I realize how selfish my heart is that my desire is not to bring God glory through the situation and I realize I need help. And so I come to God again and force my squirmy heart to sit still and be exposed to his light. Perhaps we are meant to have a small taste of what Job felt. "Though he slay me, yet I will trust him." When we give him our hearts truly, he truly changes them right down the very core. Right where it hurts the most, and right where it feels the best afterwards.

When you come out on the other side there's just peace and joy. You start to actually have experiences where your heart-motive is to bring God glory and you encourage, love, or serve someone. I'm probably more emotional than most but it seriously make me want to laugh. I will tell you, I have not laughed so much and so deeply in a very long time. Bringing God glory doesn't seem as intimidating and beyond anymore. To intentionally do things with the heart-motive to make Jesus look more beautiful is what brings God glory. I'm praying that my squirmy heart will eventually become established and rooted in this mission. It's not just the call for believers who want to go the extra mile. It's the call for every believer. To give God your heart and have him transform you at the core of who you are.