The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question, “What is the chief end of man?” It then goes on to answer the question as follows: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
Just what is a catechism? Simply put it is a teaching designed to teach the Christian faith. The Westminster Shorter Catechism was developed to teach members of the church the doctrines of the Bible. The entire catechism consists of 107 of these teachings and each teaching has Scripture references for the student to study. And it is only fitting that the catechism’s first question is its most famous and I dare say most important: “What is the chief end of man?”
Have you ever wondered why God created you? It wasn’t that God was lonely or needed us. He was perfectly content and in sweet fellowship within the Trinity. I believe that God wanted to shower His awesome love on His creation and we became the objects of that love. The natural question to then ask is what is our purpose for living?
I believe when we truly comprehend just how special we are to God, just who we are in Christ, how wonderful it is to be a Christian, and how we will spend eternity, with a glorified body, with Jesus in heaven, then spending our waking hours glorifying God will not only prove a great privilege but a delight and joy!
The Scriptures are full of verses that show us that our main purpose in life is to glorify God in everything we do. For example, (1 Corinthians 10:31) tells us: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” And we read: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Revelation 4:11).
One of the main reasons that Christians don’t experience more abundant joy in life is because they don’t glorify God enough. There is a wonderful verse that ties together glorifying God and enjoying His presence, found in the book of Psalms that reads: “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4). You see when we delight in the Lord God’s desires become our desires and our desires become God’s desires. I love what John Piper says: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”1 When we are delighted in God we will be much more prone to do everything to the glory of God and this will bring us great satisfaction and joy.
In fact, self-denial and suffering, two things none of us want in life, are often the pathway to both glorifying God and experience the joy of the Lord. When we are willing to deny ourselves for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God we bring God glory. And when we suffer for the sake of the gospel we can experience great joy. Just listen to these wonderful words: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12).
(Psalm 16:11) says: “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” I love this verse because first, when it says that God will show us the path of life, it will be a path where we can use all of the circumstances in our lives to bring glory to the Lord. Second, when we do this we will enter into the intimate presence of the Lord where we will experience wonderful joy. And third, instead of experiencing the passing pleasures of sin, when we do things God’s way we receive special pleasures now as well as for all of eternity.
In closing I would like to share a quote by the great missionary to Africa, David Livingstone. The occasion for this quote was in response to the question of how was he able to make such a great sacrifice in dedicating his life to serving as a missionary in Africa, instead of living a life of comfort in England. The audience he shared these words was in a speech he gave at Cambridge University in 1857:
“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 healthful activity, 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
Livingstone understood, I truly believe, how glorifying God and experiencing joy go hand in hand even when self-denial and suffering are often required of the Christian.
1 Our Grand Obligation: Glorify God by Enjoying Him Forever | Desiring God
2 “I never made a sacrifice” – Theology for the People (nickcady.org)