Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
This is the first question and answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. All Christians; Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Evangelical, Reformed, Pentecostals, and even, dare I say... Baptists (!) should commit this to memory and teach it to their children and their children's children. This one question answers, and answers correctly, THE question: What is the meaning of life? (I can already hear my son ask, "You mean it is not 42?") So my "little plot" is one that seeks to glorify God, and to enjoy Him, both now and forever.
But let me ask, what does it mean to glorify God? Glory is one of those Christian words that is often used, but not well understood. For the purpose of this blog entry, I will focus on and simplify the main concept of glory. Glory is the distinctive excellence of a thing. If you came into my house last August and saw on my back porch 20 good sized and great looking zucchini from my garden, you would assume (besides being crazy to have that much zucchini in my garden) that I was a good gardener. That zucchini is my glory. It displays the distinctive excellence of my gardening abilities. If we are to glorify God, our lives should display the distinctive excellencies of God!
My next post about the Little Plot will talk about more about how this is done.
Liberal Theology, Liberal Politics
5 years ago
This verse came to mind on reading your definition of 'glory': (thanks to Bible Gateway for allowing me to copy and paste!)
ReplyDeleteEphesians 2:10 (New International Version)
10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
"That zucchini is my glory."
ReplyDeleteI gotta say, that may be destined to become one of my favorite sayings.
Zucchini is to me as Glory is to God. Kind of puts it all into perspective, don't it?
Dropping in from fb...
ReplyDelete"and enjoy Him forever"
Now that's where I'd like to spend some time this year...what does it mean to enjoy God? Piper entertained this with his DG and I credit him with the kick in the pants reminder that our God wants us to love Him, desire Him, enjoy Him.
Looking forward to reading your words here...
Fletch
Fletch,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my blog! Mangos are always welcome in the plot.
I have a series on my tag line and will be posting a bit on enjoying God on Friday.