05 - Praying with Paul

'So we keep on praying for you, asking God to enable you to live a life worthy of your calling. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good works your faith promotes you to do. Then he will be honoured by the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all possible by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.'

What does it mean for 'Christ to be honoured by the way you live?' Well another way of understanding this verse would be to say 'may Christ be glorified by the way you live.' It is essentially saying therefore everything you do, every thought you have, every word you speak, and every action you make, God should be glorified as a result. C.S Lewis argued that as human beings every decision we make brings us closer to God or further away from Him...I would continue this line further, every decision we makes either brings glory and honour to God or it does not.

Do not take this verse lightly, glorifying God is of utmost importance...in fact glorifying God is man's chief end, everything we do should bring glory to God, it is the principal reason why we were brought into existence and why we continue to exist. God's only purpose in his own existence is to bring glory to himself, it is his nature. Indeed John Piper writes 'God's overwhelming passion is to exalt the value of his own glory?'

In life it to common that we have our own agendas and so it is no different in Christian life . We have our own ideas, opinions and strategies of how things should be done best; all to often we can become preoccupied with these agendas and we lose sight of principal aim...to bring glory to God. In my church we are under going building work and various plans are floating around as how to best carry out this work. Innevitably people will be looking at all sorts of problemsproblems of planning, finance, logistics, building and a whole host of other stuff. My prayer for those in leadership and those concerned with this building project is that they don't lose sight of their principal aim, to bring glory to God.

Why are we doing this structural work? To have more seating space. Why do want more seating space? So we can accomodate more people into our sunday morning service? Why do we want more people? So we can teach them, encourage them, bring them into the presence of God. Why do we want this? So people will learn how to glorify God more and more through, and in their lives!

Let him (man) give God all the glory, who alone makes him to differ from the worst of people in this world and the most miserable of the damned in hell...Let him ascribe all glory to Him whose workmanship we are, created in Christ jesus for good works.' Jonathan Edwards (1703 - 1758)