One Easy Step to Glorify God
The devil is the author of confusion. He makes everything as complicated as possible. This produces a demand for experts and gurus and leaders for complex organizations and secret societies, with mystery initiations. We need expert tax accountants, who can speak the specialized language of tax code, even as medical experts create their own jargon. This, of course, creates a power structure, requiring the ladder to success, which includes an expensive education, purchased at another complex organization. There, they teach us about specialized labor and the benefits to our economy. Every person does their little job to make the system work efficiently.
Satan immobilizes the church with complexity. First, he teaches that, “bigger is better,” or more precisely, “mega is better.” Second, big enterprises need complex organization. Third, complex organizations need pastoral staff (trained at expensive and complex schools). Fourth, pastoral staff is more efficient with specialization (ie. biblical counselor, youth, children, recovering addicts, women, men, sports, etc.). Fifth, more and more specialized staff is needed, as the enterprise grows. Sixth, more staff requires more money. Seventh, more money requires capital campaigns for crowd funding. Eighth, crowd funding requires pitch men, bookkeepers, tax preparers, and report producers, all of which requires more labor. Outside gurus are hired to ensure Christians have more money to feed the organization (ie. Larry Burkett, Dave Ramsey, Suzie Orman, etc.).
Many in the church believe they are glorifying God by their specialized task to keep the organization alive. Pastors become CEOs to run the big show, which produces a bigger boast of “God’s blessing.” Bigger budgets, bigger buildings, bigger campuses, more campuses must evince bigger blessings, or so goes the rationale.
Christians learn from the Bible that they were made to glorify God (1 Cor 6:20). God does not share His glory with another, so it is right for those who are filled with His Spirit to bring glory to God. It is our reasonable service to do this in whatever means God has ordained (Jn 21:19).
So how is God glorified (job #1)? What are the means God has given for us to glorify Him (the job)? What are some distractions to this purpose of God?
In the temple, Jesus prayed that God’s name would be glorified. The voice of God thundered in reply, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it, again (Jn 12:28)!” In the garden, Jesus prayed, “And now glorify Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was (Jn 17:5).” From these two verses, we recognize God’s commitment to His own glory. Therefore, all His works declare His glory (Ps 19:1; 97:6).
When Christians, who are a work of God, spiritually mature past their self-centered-ness, in their walk with Christ, they begin to see Christ as their all in all. Everything is from Him; everything is through Him; and everything is to Him (Rom 11:36). Everything means everything. So when our minds are set on the flesh and the world, and our affections are for the things of the world, then, we are not glorifying God.
The same, of course, is true for our words and actions. Christian labors and proclamations should be seasoned with Christ. As we grow up in Christ, seasoning becomes the meat itself. Certainly, as we mature with age, in everything, this should very much be true, spiritually, for the believer. We should be naïve to the knowledge and practice of evil, and ignorant of the machinations of the world. At the same time, we should be wise in the matters of the kingdom of God and of Christ.
Therefore, there is one easy step, one simple step, to glorify God: draw near to God. Each day, we walk in Christ, walking by faith, empowered by the indwelling Spirit toward God. God has willed for His elect people to receive the manifestation of the mystery of Christ, unveiled.
Christians are ordained to walk away from the darkness. More light manifests to our spiritual eyes and the blindness to the things of God dissipates. It is God’s Spirit energizing, that is, Christ who works mightily in us to walk in the will of God and in the way of God. The boundaries are set by God’s law, but it is the Spirit who keeps us moving forward and on track. Think of the little motorized cars on their tracks at Disneyland. That is the Christian life. We participate, but the power, the direction, the boundaries, and the destination all belong to God.
To complicate Christianity is a travesty. To professionalize Christianity, with leaders, is only a demonstration of disobedience. We have one Leader, who is Christ. We have one Teacher, who is the Spirit of Christ, and we have one Father, who is in heaven (Mt 23:9–10). Anything else is a complication introduced by the devil.
To glorify God and Christ, one must only do one thing…speak of them. As the Father draws His elect child to Christ, and as the Spirit teaches her the riches of the glory of Christ in her, the topic of her conversation changes. The conversation changes because her mind is increasingly set upon things above, where Christ is seated in glory (Col 3:2). As Christians, we speak our minds, and we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), therefore, we speak of Christ, even as we grow in the knowledge of Him.
Christian, you were made anew for this singular purpose: to glorify God in Christ. All you must do to fulfill God’s eternal purpose for you in Christ, is to speak of what you know of Him (Acts 1:8). Speak the truth…Christ (Eph 4:15, 25). As ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20), speak of and for the Head of our holy nation (1 Pet 2:9). Speak His Word, the Bible, for that is His mind and His will for others to hear. In this, He is glorified, as we tell the nations and the world of His excellencies. So we pray, “Be glorified, O God, as we tell of all your glory!”
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
November 23, 2021
