Glorify God
...I ask for them. I am not praying for the world but for those You have given Me, because they are Yours. Everything I have is Yours and everything You have is Mine, and I have been glorified in them...
...I have given them the glory You have given Me. May they be one as We are one. I am in them and You are in Me. May they be completely one, so the world may know You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me. Father, I desire those You have given Me to be with Me where I am. Then they will see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the world's foundation.
-John 17:4-5, 9-10, and 22-24
The gospel message is that Jesus saves and you now get to live in him.
Are you glorifying God with your life and are you doing the work God has given you to do? Did you know that the good news, the gospel message, is that Jesus saves and you now get to live in him?(1) We need to get the first part and we want everyone to get it and be saved. But, maybe we neglect the second part, which is the good news that we now get to live in Christ.
That is what the Christian is, saved and alive.
Everything we do is for God's glory.
Giving glory to God means that your life points to God. How you behave, how you talk, how you live, and how you love; all give glory to God. Everything we do is for God's glory(2).
God is a 24-7 God. Heaven is always awake. So, what I do and how I think and what I say, all the time is for God's glory.
I can take a nap or get a good night's sleep for the glory of God. I can cook meals and clean up for the glory of God. I also can glorify God in how I drive my car and how I shop and treat other shoppers.
I glorify God with what I do when I'm alone. God is glorious and I am always either giving God glory, pointing to God; or not. God is glorious and giving glory to God is the natural way of life for the children of God, lived out by Jesus and now lived out by people who are in Christ.
Saved unto good works.
I have glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave Me to do.Jesus finished the work that God gave him to do, but what is the work that God has given you to do?
The work that God gives us to do are not works that save us but works we do because we are saved:
Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. -Eph. 2:8-10, MSGWe are saved to do good works! We are saved to participate in the glory of God (3). We are inviting and including people who don't yet know God, to be introduced to Christ. We are saved to be one with God, to work with God, and to go and make learners (disciples)(4).
-This post was first published in 2013. I did make some minor changes.
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1. 1 John 4:9-10, " This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins."
2. 1 Corinthians 10:31, "So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, you should do it all for God’s glory."
3. Habakkuk 2:14, "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD's glory, as the waters cover the sea."; 2 Corinthians 3:18, "We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit."
4. Matthew 28:19, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."