Mike Focht 6/2/2023
The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God; we should neither eat nor drink nor sleep, but eat to God and sleep to God and work to God and talk to God, do all to His glory and praise. These are the words of Richard Sibbes from his book Divine Meditations.
These words sound like good, hearty Christian doctrine. These are the type of words that any self-respecting Christian would have to nod their assent to. If most of us were placed in a situation to agree or disagree publicly—we would say Richard was correct. After all, what Christian can be against living for the glory of God?
The problem is that the beauty of a God-glorifying life is so rare that many Christians don’t believe this type of life is possible. The rarity of God-glorifying lives is primarily due to two simple factors. First, the vast majority of people who live to the glory of God do so humbly and quietly. There is no active personal promotion of such a lifestyle. This factor is inescapable, inherent, and beautiful. Second is that many Christians don’t want everything in their lives to glorify Him. We might want a part of our lives to glorify God but not every part of our lives.
This double-minded desire is evident when we don’t labor or pray that every aspect of our life will glorify God specifically; instead, we casually hope that, in the end, the total of our life will glorify God generally. By focusing on a more general desire to glorify God, we live under a low standard that doesn’t encompass the nitty-gritty daily details such as speaking, working, eating, or drinking. If someone were to challenge whether our everyday life surrendered to God’s glory, a typical response would sound something like this: But no one actually lives like that, or Who can really live their Christian life that way?
Instead of seeking what glorifies Him, we want to measure the potency of our life by a general lack of infamous sin. This unformed and unspoken standard goes something like this: If I am nice to my family, go to church, serve a little, give a little, and stay away from drugs, adultery, drunkenness, pornography, murder, and most gossip; I will have lived a life glorifying to God. Totality is the goal, so let’s not get mixed up with the details.
There is a problem with this foggy hope. That is not the way God talks about a life that is glorifying to Him. Strangely enough, God goes immediately to the details.
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
God knows that if He has the daily details of our life, He will be glorified in the sum total of our lives. Ultimately, to be faithful in little is to be faithful in much. So the old question remains, Do we sincerely desire to glorify God? Are we willing to have every aspect of our lives speak of Him? Do we choose to commune with Him in even the most minor and most common actions of our lives? Do we desire people to see Jesus in everything we say and do or just some of what we say and do? Do I personally want this blog and website to glorify Him and Him alone?
The man who seeks to glorify God in all his life will be recognized even in his eating and drinking. Show me such a man. Show me such a woman. If we were to follow them from that table, we will see that they also glorify God in their speech, workplaces, ministries, homes, emails, texts, and leisure. Even their hopes and dreams will be just as God-honoring and God-glorifying.
May God send more of these rare men and women into our midst, for we desperately need the light of His glory to reflect from their humble lives into the haze that often surrounds us. May God grant us His Holy Spirit to help us walk in a way that glorifies Him. That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.