God Is Not an Idolater

When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. (2 Thessalonians 1:10)

Paul says that Christ is coming precisely to be glorified and to be marveled at. That is why he is coming.

People stumble over the teaching that God exalts his own glory and seeks to be praised by his people because the Bible teaches us not to be like that. For example, the Bible says that love “does not seek its own” (1 Corinthians 13:5, NASB).

How can God be loving and yet be utterly devoted to “seeking his own” glory and praise and joy? How can God be for us if he is so utterly for himself?

The answer I propose is this: Because God is unique as an all-glorious, totally self-sufficient Being, he must be for himself if he is to be for us. The rules of humility that belong to a creature cannot apply in the same way to its Creator.

If God should turn away from himself as the Source of infinite joy, he would cease to be God. He would deny the infinite worth of his own glory. He would imply that there is something more valuable outside himself. He would commit idolatry.

This would be no gain for us. For where can we go when our God has become unrighteous? Where will we find a Rock of integrity in the universe when the heart of God has ceased to value supremely the supremely valuable? Where shall we turn with our adoration when God himself has forsaken the claims of infinite worth and beauty?

No, we do not turn God’s self-exaltation into love by demanding that God cease to be God.

Instead, we must come to see that God is love precisely because he relentlessly pursues the praises of his name in the hearts of his people. Our praise for his greatness is the capstone of our joy and his greatness.

John Piper 

Should you hide in the dark clouds?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Keep me as the apple of the eye…hide me under the shadow of Thy wings. Psalm 17:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Charles Wesley was walking through the woods by a swollen stream on a stormy day. A lightning storm broke out, and rain began coming down in torrents. Little birds up in a tree were shivering on a limb. A bolt of lightning flashed and one little bird was so frightened, it flew out of the tree, flew down toward Wesley, and went right under his coat.

Wesley was so moved by the scene, he wrote a song we often sing:

“Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly, 

While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high. 

Hide me, O my Savior, hide me, ‘til the storm of life is past; 

Safe unto the haven guide me. O receive my soul at last.”

That’s what our Lord does. He hides us, sustains us, and keeps us.

ACTION POINT:

Are the storms of life raging around you? Hide yourself in the dark clouds—they are just the shadow of His wing.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Tears of The Savior

Those tears were not just any tears.

Those tears were from the deepest part of the soul of Jesus Christ who knew the sorrow brought by a fallen world.

A high priest like no other, appointed by God for His holy purpose.

Though He knew no sin, in perfect obedience to His Father, God Almighty, He received the full wrath of God.

That wrath justly belonged to mankind.

He was fully aware of what things could be before sin entered in.

Perfection, paradise, and peace, that was to be our world.

Satan enticed Adam to sin, Adam, the first man agreed to it. 

And all mankind fell into sin and it changed everything. 

Sin through one man brought sorrow.

But by the power of a holy God, through His only Son, redemption was brought to all who will believe and obey.

God who is rich in mercy, made a way for our reconciliation.

Jesus knew He would be rejected by man.

He knew His Father would deliver the separation which was so devastating.

Jesus also knew that He alone is our only way to salvation.

Let no other living soul persuade you that there is another way. 

You will be doomed to darkness and suffering in Hell.

You will be forever separated from the light and hope. 

This was a decree by God Almighty established through Christ alone.

Bow down for mercy, repent, and follow Christ.

41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,

42 saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.

43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side

44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation." - Luke 19:41-44

1 For every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.

2 He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.

3 Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifice for his own sins just as he does for those of the people.

4 And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.

5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"; 

6 as he says also in another place, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek." 

7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.

8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.

9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. - Hebrews 5:1-10

Pleased to Praise

Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! (Psalm 67:3, 5)

Why does God demand we must praise God?

C.S. Lewis:

Just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?”

The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

There is the answer — the solution to the apparent egomania of God in demanding us to praise him! It is a demand for our greatest happiness. We praise what we enjoy because the delight is incomplete until it is expressed in praise. If we were not allowed to speak of what we value and celebrate what we love and praise what we admire, our joy would not be full.

So, if God loves us enough to make our joy full, he must not only give us himself; he must also win from us the praise of our hearts — not because he needs to shore up some weakness in himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because he loves us and seeks the fullness of our joy that can be found only in knowing and praising him, the most magnificent of all beings.

If he is truly for us, he must be for himself! God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking his own praise is the ultimately loving act. For him, self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When he does all things “to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:12, 14), he preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world that can satisfy our longings.

God is for us! And the foundation of this love is that God has been, is now, and always will be for himself.

John Piper 

What you should do, no matter what...

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Therefore I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and I will sing praises unto Thy name. 2 Samuel 22:50

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

If we get into an auto accident and come out alive, we typically thank God for sparing our lives. But do you ever just thank God for saving your life as you drove home from work and didn’t have an accident? Isn’t that even better?

I heard a story that poignantly illustrates this. One Sunday a husband and wife heard that a couple in their church whose son died on the battlefield gave a significant love offering in his memory. On the way home, the wife asked her husband, “Why don’t we give an offering for our son?” 

“Why?” he answered. “Our son wasn’t killed.” 

She said, “Don’t you think that’s a good reason?”

How blessed we are!

ACTION POINT:

What should you do in all things? Thank God in your circumstances, whether they be good or bad—because we do not know what God is doing behind the scenes even in the hard things to bring about the best for us in the long run. Read Ephesians 1:8-23 and see the plan God is working in your life.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

An Unshakably Happy God

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11)

God is absolutely sovereign.

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3).

Therefore, he is not frustrated. He rejoices in all his works when he contemplates them as colors of the magnificent mosaic of redemptive history. He is an unshakably happy God.

His happiness is foundationally the delight he has in himself. Before creation, he rejoiced in the image of his glory in the person of his Son — his beloved Son in whom he was well pleased (Matthew 3:17). Then the joy of God “went public” in the works of creation and redemption.

These works delight the heart of God because they reflect his glory. The heavens are telling the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works” (Psalm 104:31) He does everything he does to preserve and display that glory, for in this his soul rejoices.

All the works of God culminate in the praises of his redeemed people. “Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!” (Psalm 150:2). The climax of his happiness is the delight he takes in the echoes of his excellence in the praises of the saints. “His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love” (Psalm 147:10–11).

But our praise is not only God’s delight, as an echo of his excellence, it is also the apex of our joy. Praise is the consummation of the joy we have in seeing and savoring the greatness of God.

Therefore, God’s pursuit of praise from us and our pursuit of pleasure in him are the same pursuit. This is the great outcome of the gospel of the glory of the grace of God in Christ!

John Piper 

Does this ring true in your home?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it. Ephesians 5:25

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A little boy was looking through the family picture album, and he came to a picture of his mother when she was a young girl, taken just after his parents had married. The boy asked his father, “Is that when Mother came to work for us?”

Does this ring true in your home? Let me set the record straight. That’s not what the Bible teaches. That’s not the way Christ loves the church. He gave Himself to us to sacrifice for us. The husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church.

If a husband follows the example of Jesus Christ, he will love his wife sacrificially. He will love her in such a way that he would be willing to lay down his life for her. He’s going to protect her. He’s going to provide for her. He’s going to do what he can to present his wife and family as holy vessels for the Lord’s use.

ACTION POINT:

Are you married? Then how are you doing on the sacrificial quotient of giving to your spouse? If you had to, would you be willing to lay down your life for your spouse? It’s servant leadership. And your children are watching your example.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers