“Why should we live for God after He has saved us?” I remember asking Ben on the rooftop of the school at Happy Home, under the glare of the Nepalese noon sun. It was a few weeks into our month in Nepal, and I had just asked my teammates to keep me accountable to keep asking questions and delving deeper into God. The question popped into my head after reading 2 Corinthians 5:15, which says: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
“Well, that’s a good question,” he replied. That’s one of the things I love about asking Ben and my other teammates questions; they never say they is stupid or discount them, but always take time to consider them carefully and reply in depth.
We started discussing and answering the question, which seemed quite innocent at first and peripheral to the Christian faith, but which soon led us to discuss the core of Christianity.
“You see, we are saved by grace,” he explains, “that means we did nothing to earn our salvation. While we were still sinners, deep in our own wicked ways and in no way deserving of any notice from God at all, he gave us the greatest gift possible, His own life, so that we can be saved from our sins and reconciled to him. After such a gift, we can’t help but follow Him and live for Him out of gratitude.”
I still wasn’t convinced. “Why did God make us to be sinners? Why didn’t He make us perfect? In the Bible God describes His people, His Church, as his bride. Why didn’t He choose a faithful bride instead of a promiscuous bride?” You can tell from my skeptical questions that I wasn’t feeling very grateful to God back then – not that story of Jesus’s sacrifice didn’t move me, but I was still plagued with doubts.
I’ll never forget Ben’s answer, because it stunned me and revolutionized my thinking, and is still doing so to this day. “Because it brings God the most glory,” was what he said.
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Created for His glory. The Bible says that mankind was created for God’s glory. That’s the reason for our existence. The Shorter Catechism (written in the 1640s by English and Scottish top theologians) summarizes it like this: “Man’s chief End is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” But what does that even mean?
I thought about what the word “glory” meant in our day to day life. For example, we would say a sunset is glorious. We call it that when it displays its fantastic colours and shades and hues of heavenly rays at its best. We call music “glorious” when it inspires feelings of wonder, awe, and beauty inside of us so great we can’t even contain it. We would call a beautiful woman arrayed “in all her glory” when she is dressed at her finest and most beautiful. In ancient days, a king is said to display all his glory when he shows how much wealth he has and how powerful he is. So, I concluded, the glory of something must be how great and awesome something is. So to glorify God must mean to show how great He is.
But why must we glorify God? I knew we were created to do it, but why? I asked Ben this too. He pondered for just a moment, then replied, “Because He’s God. That means there is no one higher than Him in any way. There is no one greater, there is no one wiser, no one more just, loving, holy, etc. than He is. If there was, than that person/thing would be God, not Him. He’s the only thing worthy to be worshipped and glorified in this whole universe. It’s not wrong for Him to glorify Himself; actually, it would be wrong of Him if He didn’t. Everything in this universe, from the smallest atom to the stars and nebulas, were meant to show the greatness and awesomeness of His nature and character.
“What’s more, not only is He the only one deserving of glory, we are most satisfied when we glorify Him, because He has created us to do it. That means that God wanting us to glorify Him is only going to give us maximum joy. It’s a win-win situation.”
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By this time, Brandon and Taryn had also joined us on the rooftop. As the two of them sit down for a rest before after-lunch activities resumed, Ben and Brandon continue the conversation about the glory of God. The topic had somehow wandered to: “what will heaven be like?”
There were a few jokes and speculation about common conceptions (or misconceptions) about heaven, such as whether we’ll have possessions, or whether we will do our favourite activities, or whether we’ll be with our friends. However, the answer I found the most startling was once again, Ben’s.
“I think that when we get to heaven, we won’t be thinking about our friends and family, or eating, or any of these things. I think the moment we see God, we will be so enraptured by His beauty, His greatness, the awesomeness of everything He is that all I can do for eternity is just to gaze upon Him and worship Him forever, and that will be my heart’s delight, the utter satisfaction of my soul. I won’t even for an instant think about anything else, because He would captivate my whole attention.”
Just like a bride and bridegroom, I thought. It’ll be like a wedding banquet that lasts forever, with our eyes staring into the ones of the One we love.
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In Kenya, we had the privilege of staying with Bishop Moses’s family and going with him to share Bible stories at children’s homes, pray for the sick in hospitals, share God’s Word in prisons, and help with the construction of a new church building. Along the way, we met some amazing people. There was Joanne, the white missionary from Canada who hiked up mountains and tented in snake-infested grass to bring the gospel message to unreached tribes; yet her Baptist minister husband had left her for another woman 8 years ago. There was Joseph, a bedridden man with mysteriously swollen ankles who had to use his retirement money to cover his medical bills, yet he was declaring his praises to God when we asked to pray for him. There was Kennedy, a small farmer who had lost his firstborn son before he turned 7 years old, but who still spoke of standing firm in the faith and letting God to use his testimony to comfort others in the same situation.
While they spoke, it was evident that these events had hurt or cost these people deeply, and it was no light feat to overcome them. Yet they were people filled with joy and who found their answer in the Lord, even though they went through such painful and difficult experiences. Why? To a human mind like mine, their situations defied the concept of fairness. These situations should have made them doubt God and His goodness, not trust in Him more.
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Created for His glory.
What does that mean? To show God’s greatness. I began to understand that this wasn’t a forced thing, but something that we naturally do. When we see a sunset, we don’t need to force ourselves to say that it is beautiful. When we hear about people like Mother Theresa giving her life to help the poor, we don’t need to force ourselves to feel inspired at her compassion. When God says we were created for His Glory, we don’t need to force ourselves to be in awe on Him. It’s something that we naturally do, once we start to understand Who God is. God is Love…whatever we think love is, God is infinitely more than that. God is Just…whatever we think justice is, God is infinitely more than that…etc.
I’m also starting to realize that God writes our life stories to maximize the glory it gives him. And He writes all our life stories differently. I can ask a lot of why’s and what-about’s regarding my own life story. Why, Lord, did you take so long to answer my prayer to know You better? What about marriage, Lord, will that be in Your plans for me? Finally, it came to me that maybe God waited so long to answer my prayer so that I would know I didn’t do it out of my own strength, but that He reveals Himself to me. Or maybe God will postpone the season of marriage in my life, so that I can glorify Him by learning to depend on Him and let Him be sufficient for me.
I’m also starting to realize that, if that is the case, that’s okay. Because God is the wisest, most just, most loving. His Plans, though they may be unfathomable to me, are also the best. He will work things out so that He is most glorified, and when I see the greatness and awesomeness of His Love, faithfulness, and other qualities, I in turn am the most satisfied. What else could I want better than to turn my life over to Him?
Now, when I look at Joanne, Joseph, and Kennedy, and how they reacted to their life situations, I think I have a better understanding of why they can still be so joyful despite their difficult and painful circumstances. It wasn’t that the events in their lives didn’t hurt them – it was clear that they did. But they put their faith in the Creator of Heaven and Earth that these things must have happened for a purpose, and that despite everything, He was still good, faithful, just, and loving.
They must have really understood what it meant to be created for His glory.
*picture from http://www.maremmaguide.com/sunset-scenery.html.
