Welcome to Part 1 of this month’s entry, I hope that you have had a productive month and that you continue doing so.
This week, it’s all for HIS glory. While that may be quite simple to profess, I have found that it’s quite hefty to live out.
Introduction
Ever heard of the saying “it’s easier said than done?” I feel like that most times as a believer of Christ and I find myself relating to Paul’s words “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:19-25 NLT).
We are able to do the little we are able to; not by our strength, but because of Christ who lives in us, because of grace. We were never built to rely on ourselves.
Trust in the Lord and do good.
Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you your heart’s desires.
Commit everything you do to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will help you.
He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn,
and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.
Be still in the presence of the Lord,
and wait patiently for him to act.
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper
or fret about their wicked schemes.
(Psalms 37:3-7 NLT)
Because of HIM
How many times have we ever told ourselves and others that everything we do, we do for the glory of God? Is it true though?
The way professing God’s grace and glory over our lives is so easy, we tend to say it even when we don’t mean it, we tend to say it to cover our basis, normally presenting a Christian front so we convince people that it’s all God.
If I could sit us down and ask a simple question; what was the process followed that led to your amazing breakthrough or success?
Many of us would count the amount of times we had to work hard, put in the hours, have a mentor, made sure we rested when we needed to rest, made the right decisions, read somewhere in a book from so & so, were pushed by family to do better and so on, you catch the drift.
However, how many of us, in this answer would count the times we had to fast, pray, re-align our will with God’s will, trust in God’s timing, learn how to rely on God, etc., you again catch the drift?
What I’m saying is that many of us may have a “how to” step by step guide that excludes us relying on God for everything in our lives.
POV: If we have or had a “how to” step by step guide, would any of the steps reflect how we relied on God? Would any of the steps show how He in actual fact controls or controlled the outcome? Would there be a step in the “how to” guide showing how we fasted and surrendered our ways?
Just like that, our hand has been revealed; we have either done so or not. For the latter; if we cannot place God’s role in any of the step by step guides we so fondly follow, it is then safe to say, we actually don’t mean it when we give Him the glory we display & profess to others.
We may throw the dice, but the LORD determines how they fall. (Proverbs 16:33 NLT)
No matter the plans we have, no matter the guides we follow, it would be wise to understand that everything we follow and the outcome we have comes from God, we cannot and I repeat, cannot get things done without Him. It’s as simple and as hard as that.
There is nothing we can ever do to succeed without God, it is God, it always has been God, it will always be God.
“O LORD our God, even this material we have gathered to build a Temple to honor your holy name comes from you! It all belongs to you! (1 Chronicles 29:16 NLT)
What I love about this verse is that it reveals how a minute acknowledgement of a detail can make all the difference, even the material. We are used to acknowledging God with the big visible things that we miss His work with the small things too and we tend to tribute those small things to ourselves.
Point of discussion: it’s easy to mix our will with God’s will
It’s possible to mix our will with God’s will, very possible, however, that doesn’t mean that our zeal for God is gone, it simply means we are human, born of sin.
When such happens, and trust me it often does, we need to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge it, take the time and go to God and re-align our will with His.
There are so many things we are plagued with and so much we want to do right but don’t. When we continue reading down from Romans 7:25, Paul mentions how there is another power at war with our minds, this power makes us a slave to the sin that is still within us and that the freedom we seek from sin and death is in Jesus Christ our Lord and saviour.
He continues to reveal how in our minds we want to obey God’s law but because of our sinful nature we are a slave to sin.
In all that Paul has said, I would like us to see how he is being honest with what has enslaved us. He believes and professes the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and soon after reminds us of what we battle with.
What I am saying is this; we can be in Christ, believe in Him with all our minds, hearts and souls and still do what is wrong.
In the next chapter, Romans 8, Paul continues to inform us of what we experience as Christ followers, although we may sin, we do not face any condemnation. He then continues to help us understand what Christ did for us.
He helps us to see that we do sin; he doesn’t mention how we are now wicked and should be thrown away. Sure yes, I sinned because I somewhat cannot runaway from sin, however, are my thoughts dominated by sinful things or are my thoughts dominated with things that will please the Spirit?
So what am I saying? It seems to me that Paul was well aware of the battles we would be facing and that one them is the war of wanting to do good and then not.
I know I used to disqualify myself and doubt if I actually was doing things to honour God just because of sin. After reading Romans 8, I got to see how easy it is to sin and how it doesn’t disqualify me from being a Christ follower or suddenly make me a person full of lies and ill intentions.
We have come to the end of our Part 1 post on Glory to the most HIGH series. We’ll be posting our Part 2 which will focus on solutions to what we have discussed in this post.
What has your experience been with glorifying God? Let us know in the comment section.