What can be more important than to glorify God and enjoy Him forever? According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism this is the chief end of man. Some of the ways we glorify God are to serve Him, obey His will, understand and proclaim His greatness, and always reverence Him with thankfulness and praise. And while these activities often require self-denial, paradoxically self-denial is the pathway to ultimate satisfaction and enjoyment in God.
To glorify God is not only our greatest obligation as a Christian but it is our greatest privilege. It adds wonderful purpose and meaning to life and pleasures beyond our wildest imagination. So, my advice to new Christians is to get set for the journey of a lifetime and praise God this journey will never end!
I know in my own life my one consuming passion is to glorify God in everything I do. And the more I realize that I was created to be a God glorifying vessel, the more I strive to live each day in ways that put Jesus first in all I do. I love what John Piper shared regarding this point: “God created me-and you-to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion, namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.”1
I continue to learn that the more I practice self-denial to advance the kingdom of God, and thus glorify Jesus, rather than give up earthly pleasures, my heavenly Father supplies me with amazing joy far more wonderful than what I sacrificed though my self-denial. Not only that, but I am accumulating treasures in heaven in the process.
And as I grow closer to the Lord my passion to display His supreme excellences in all the spheres of my life only increases because, quite frankly, my desire to please Jesus becomes a consuming fire in my heart. I firmly believe that when I delight myself in the Lord, He will give me the desires of my new transformed heart (Psalm 37:4). Satan wants me to believe that the sacrifices I make to glorify God make me a fool, but I know through experience that this is just another lie.
The great missionary to Africa, David Livingstone, throughout his amazing life, never viewed the many dangers, trials, and sufferings he experienced in Africa for Christ’s sake a sacrifice, but rather a privilege. Once when Livingstone addressed a classroom full of Cambridge University students in 1858 he stated:
“For my own part, I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa… Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in… the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.”2
My friends, at age 72, my one consuming passionate desire is to glorify my Savior, who died for me that I may live for Him. My prayer is that you too will ask Jesus to increase your passion to worship, serve, delight in, and glorify His name. I guarantee that the blessings you receive will make the sacrifices you make small in comparison.