Today glorify and enjoy God
God’s love for us in Christ upends our whole lives in the best way. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:14–15 that:
The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
The gospel of Jesus is so powerful that it disrupts our former pursuits in life, which include glorifying and enjoying ourselves, as well as building our own personal kingdoms. As Charles Wesley’s great hymn expresses:
Did he die for me, who caused his pain?
For me, who pursued him to death?
Amazing love! How can it be
That thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
This amazing love causes us to love God in return (1 John 4:19). It compels us to live no longer for ourselves but for Christ, who died for our sake and was raised.
God’s love for us is so precious that we hold it as “better than life” (Ps. 63:3; see Acts 20:24). In the words of Isaac Watts, “All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.”
Although it can be painful and uncomfortable for us, the Holy Spirit prompts us to willingly relinquish self-oriented activities and ambitions. The New Testament speaks of our old self and our former pursuits as being crucified with Christ—as dead—so that now we live for a glorious purpose: to glorify and enjoy God forever (Gal. 2:20).
Sch great love enlists us as God’s servants, seeking His will in every facet of our lives (2 Cor. 5:9; 2 Tim. 2:4). This means submitting our whole lives to Him—from how we spend our time and money, to the relationships and friendships we enter, to our careers.
In our homes, we keep certain rooms “off limits” to guests—where they cannot enter—but the Christian has nothing that is “off limits” to God. We take every thought captive to Christ, not just some (2 Cor. 10:5). “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
The world, the flesh, and the devil will object here and say that God is overly demanding. Surely it’s too much to require that our whole lives be submitted to God. Surely this will lead to “Christianity made impossible” and lives that are puritanical and without fun, in constant fear of doing something wrong. This is the same tactic that Satan used in the garden: making God out to be withholding, unkind, and unloving. Satan glamorises sin but hides the fine print: Sin always deceives and kills (Prov. 9:13–18).
As John Bunyan depicted in The Pilgrim’s Progress, the world invites us to shop at Vanity Fair and treasure this world instead of continuing our heavenward journey. Contrary to the world, the flesh, and the devil, submitting one’s whole life to God is both freeing and joyful. We follow the instructions of God’s Word “not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love” (Westminster Confession of Faith 20.1). Rather than hollowing out our enjoyment of this life, God deepens it.
Everything a Christian does can and should be God-oriented, a means of delighting in God and praising Him. Just as we are pleased when we give a child a gift and they immediately play with it, one of the ways we glorify God is by joyfully using His gifts (1 Tim. 4:4). A Christian enjoys music and praises God for the gift of hearing. A Christian creates and appreciates art, aware that God is the ultimate Artist.
A chess player marvels at the complexity of strategy and praises God for knowing more than any computer ever could, every possible combination of moves. In our sports competitions, we pray not “Lord, help me to win” but “Lord, help me to glorify and enjoy You through this ability that You have given to me, and give me grace sufficient even in defeat.”
God’s love frees us to enjoy such things rather than slavishly pursuing victory—we do our best and rest on God for outcomes rather than rooting our identity in our accomplishments. God loved us before we ever ran a step, said a word, or took a test, and He will still love us if we lose.
Serving God enables us to rest on Him for everything we need rather than striving in self-reliance for the idols we wanted (e.g., James 4:1–7). In our jobs, we strive to please God, not just people. We work knowing that this is one of God’s means of providing our family with daily bread.
Submitting to God may mean taking a job that provides less income or prestige, but it enables you to be a better blessing to your community or to live closer to a church, where you can serve and be nourished. In all of life, we are not building our own kingdoms but are seeking to be faithful in God’s. We serve at the pleasure of our God and King; He makes our labours fruitful, and thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, nothing we do in His service will be in vain (Ps. 127:1; 1 Cor. 15:58).
Married Christians will glorify and enjoy God, knowing that God has given them their spouses, who, like themselves, have many imperfections. God has betrothed Himself to His church and loves her fiercely; His love is our model (Eph. 5:25). What a wonderful testimony to God’s grace it is to observe an older saint caring sacrificially for the spouse of their youth who now struggles with dementia or Alzheimer’s.
Even sex is transformed by pursuing our chief end in marriage; God’s Spirit enables us to believe and know that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Naturally, human beings are “curved in on ourselves.” Still, the Holy Spirit reorients us to honour others above ourselves. This affects our friendships, too. They are not just for what we get from them, such as affirmation, but an avenue for us to bless others. Building relationships with others is a joyful calling wherein we are both blessed by them and a blessing to them.
Our leisure time is also laid at the foot of Christ’s cross. When a particular activity is not prohibited in God’s Word or commanded by it, we seek to use our Christian liberty wisely. Because God made humanity to need rest, a person can glorify and enjoy God by recharging for later labours.
We need a day of rest and worship just as we need sleep. We even eat and sleep for God’s glory, seeking to be faithful stewards of the bodies that God has provided, and enjoying God, who gives us delicious food and the rest we need. As you steward your body with some degree of diet and exercise, you are motivated not by vanity or shame but by grace and gratitude: God has given life, and so you want to preserve it.
These are just a few examples of how we enjoy and glorify God in the various spheres of life. He makes our lives theatres where we behold His glory, faithfulness, and the goodness of sacrificial love. Of course, until God brings us to our heavenly home, we often fail to glorify and enjoy Him. We neglect, misuse, and abuse His good gifts and thereby defraud “ourselves of the due use and comfort of that estate which God hath given us” (Westminster Larger Catechism 142).
When serving God feels like a burden, and we recognise that we’ve failed to glorify and enjoy God, we turn to God’s throne of grace in prayer. We cry, with Moses, “Please show me your glory” (Ex. 33:18), asking that we would know that God—not the “fleeting pleasures of sin” (Heb. 11:25)—is truly worthy of our every thought, word, and deed.
As the heavenly host cries, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain” (Rev. 5:12). We pray for the Spirit to give us “wholehearted joy in God through Christ and a love and delight to live according to the will of God by doing every kind of good work” (Heidelberg Catechism 90). Christians must continually return to the gospel, “the mercies of God,” which is compelling motivation “to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). The gospel mercies of God must always be kept in view, or else all this will indeed feel burdensome. Gratitude for grace drives the Christian life. The Christian’s strength runs on the fuel of God’s love (Neh. 8:10).
Thankfully, one glorious day, we will no longer fail to glorify and enjoy God as we ought but will be “made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 38).
Rev. Andrew J. Miller
