To God be the Glory

1 Corinthians 10:31

‘So … whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.’

One of the reasons I put off writing a blog for so long is because I didn’t want it to become about me. I felt that writing was something God was challenging me to do, I wasn’t really convinced that I could offer anything different to what was already out there and maybe I can’t but I feel it’s an act of obedience and that it is to be for ‘..the glory of God’. Even since starting writing it has been a challenge not to make it about me, it can become consuming and narcissistic. For those of you that don’t know about blogging there are features where you can check your stats and see how many people have read your blog, which continent the people are reading it on and it’s easy to become caught up in that and begin to feel that somehow it matters whether 2 people or 200 people have read it as if it is a measure of your success and a comment on who you are as a person. This was precisely what I wanted to avoid because I knew if I started this it need to be all about God. He is what is important, He is the reason I live, He is the reason I am where I am today. It is only by His grace that I am able to write and share.

The point is this I am simply an instrument. It’s like the image of the musician and his instrument, lets use the example of a violin, it can look nice but it isn’t any use or fulfilling it’s purpose unless the violinist starts to play it, then it comes into it’s own, but it isn’t the violin that is praised for being a good instrument but the violinist that is praised for making beautiful music come out and it’s no use the violin clamouring for people to praise it because actually it is only as good as the person playing it. If they are skilful then it is wonderful but if a novice is left in charge then woe betide your ears! The violin could have been made by a master luthier but again if a novice plays it the sound can still be awful. It’s the same with us He is the master creator but we are only as effective as the extent which we allow God to use us, mould and shape us and influence our actions and when he does all glory should go to him.

The world teaches that we have only made it when we are famous, or recognised for what we do. Yet all through the Bible we are taught exactly the opposite, actually our lives are representative of someone bigger than us, someone who holds the whole universe in his hands and yet I want to make it about little old me. In my previous post I mentioned how Paul called himself a Servant of God. The role of the servant is not to upstage the master but for the servant to make the master look even better. In the days when it was prevalent for the rich to have servants how well they treated guests would reflect on the master. Guests would praise the master for having his household under control. At large parties good servants would blend into the background and things would run seamlessly and the master would be applauded, not the servant.

Paul states that whatever it is we do it should be for the glory of God. We should be looking for God to be recognised in everything we do. Our actions should honour him, extend his renown in the world, not our own. At the point at which we become Christians our lives are no longer our own. We become ambassadors for Christ. We are his representatives on earth and yet how easy is it for us to make it about ourselves and what we do or have achieved.

So often we want to separate out our lives so we have our church life, our home life, our work life, or for those of us that have the luxury of getting into vast amounts of debt, our student life and we like to keep them all separate as if our faith should only affect what we do in church or Christian circles and we should only behave as if for God’s glory when we are there. Paul’s teaching challenges this so whatever we do should be for God’s glory, whether in work or in the way we talk to people. Everything we do should be done excellently, whether serving in church or doing the job we are paid for, whether committing ourselves to study or raising our children because it’s about bringing honour and praise to Him. As soon as we state we are Christians we are setting a standard that other people will judge us by.

Please don’t misunderstand we shouldn’t have a false humility and become obsessed with being invisible the opposite extreme of this is when you praise someone for anything they do and they always respond “it wasn’t me it was God” for example someone bakes a cake and you say how wonderful it tasted and they reply it’s all God, well no the reality is they baked the cake, they followed the recipe and put the ingredients together and they did it well. Or for the boys you are playing football and someone scores a terrific goal and everyone praises them and they say no that was all God, well no, you used your foot to strike the ball at the correct trajectory that put it in the back of the net. God might have given you those skills and you can glorify him for that but you do have a part to play as well. How you choose to use those skills and the attitude with which you do it should give God glory but at the same time you shouldn’t be self depreciating as it can be just as dangerous and take the glory away from God as thinking too much of yourself.

Let’s ensure that our lives reflect God that we glorify him in everything that we do and that our decisions and actions reflect him. Let us be used by him in our current circumstances and situations and make sure that the decisions we make glorify Him.

Without the chairs there is no preaching

Titus 1:1

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with Godliness.

We have just comeback from a weekend away with our church with about 100 other people. God has really blessed me and I have got excited again about what local church should be and the family God has called us to be. I felt challenged, although tired, to open my bible and read a chapter and as I was flicking through I settled on Titus.  This last week my heart’s prayer has been that I would know God’s voice more clearly that He would speak to me more clearly through the Bible that I would read with understanding and that his Holy Spirit would speak to me as I read. God as always is faithful to answer, but what I didn’t expect was that I would be challenged before I even reached the end of the first verse, so I pulled out my laptop and started typing.

Paul states that he is a servant of God & an apostle of Jesus Christ yet what struck me was that he states that this isn’t for his own benefit or even because God has given him a calling but for the sake of God’s elect. So often when we think about serving we think about it benefitting ourselves, some of us think it will earn brownie points with God, some of us do it because it makes us feel good, yet here Paul states that he is a servant of God for the sake of other believers. There is no sense that he will benefit from it but that it is for the benefit of others. We live in a society and culture that teaches we shouldn’t do things unless it benefits us, people even question people’s good work and their intentions asking whether any act can truly be unselfish because at the end of the day if we do good it makes us feel good. What a stressful way to live life always questioning our motivations. But in a short sentence Paul challenges to think not of ourselves but of those we serve. So often with the gospel we take it and make it about us what we are doing, how we are changing and growing, how church is benefitting us, yet Paul's example shows that actually what we should keep in the forefront of our mind when serving is that it’s for the sake of the faith of other believers.

It can be very easy for us to look and say that the benefit of Paul’s servitude to others is evident how it helps with the elects knowledge of truth, Paul had a very public ministry to take the gospel to the Gentiles and to build up the church, but how does someone putting out chairs in church and serving in this way help with someone else’s knowledge of the truth? Imagine turning up to church one Sunday and finding there were no chairs to sit on, many people wouldn’t concentrate, some wouldn’t stay. What use would it be for a preacher to turn up on a Sunday if no one was there to open up the building and therefore the people couldn’t get in. On a practical level It allows others to fulfil their callings but on another level it speaks of the truth of change that God is outworking in our lives, our natural selfishness being shed and replaced with the desire to serve others and to be a part of their walk whether that seems insignificant or not.

Paul’s servitude in the earthly sense had no benefit to him and in fact led to his earthly suffering, many of his epistles were written from prison.  For him life would have been so much easier if he sat back and let someone else do the job. Serving can be uncomfortable for us it isn’t always convenient and yet Paul’s example says do it for others. Paul taught us to love the church. Love includes sacrifice and inconvenience. Sometimes loving my husband means I have to inconvenience myself, I have to cook when I don’t always feel like it I have to wash clothes and keep the house tidy, it would be so much easier to look after myself and yet it demands sacrifice. We are called to do the same for others.

My challenge to you is to change your mindset. If you don’t serve currently then you need to assess why, what is stopping you? Church isn’t there for us to go and consume but there for us to be an active part of, which means more than just turning up to meetings. We shouldn’t avoid it because it’s an inconvenience because actually we are called to give our lives. If you do currently serve then can I challenge you not to serve because it makes you feel good or because you feel you must but actually to serve ‘…for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth…’.