{"id":1,"date":"2018-04-19T02:57:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T02:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turktoturkprayer.com\/?p=1"},"modified":"2020-03-31T13:58:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-31T13:58:49","slug":"what-is-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/turktoturkprayer.com\/blog\/what-is-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"What the Heck is Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Am I right?<\/p>\n

There are a handful of words that, even after spending my whole life in Christian culture, I have no idea what they actually mean.<\/p>\n

I mean, I could probably spout of the dictionary definition. If modernism has taught us anything, it\u2019s how to neatly package humongous ideas. So I probably could have told you that glory had something to do with \u201cweightiness,\u201d but let\u2019s be honest, weightiness doesn\u2019t really mean anything\u2014unless you\u2019re talking about how I feel after my second Filabertos bean burrito.<\/p>\n

But glory is probably a concept that we ought to have a better grasp on. After all, the first question of Westminster Short Catechism reads:<\/p>\n

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
\nA. Man\u2019s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If our primary purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him, I probably ought to know what it means to glorify God, right?<\/p>\n

HOW I GOT HERE<\/h3>\n

This came up recently as I was preparing to teach Act I of the God Story: creation.<\/p>\n

Now, I love the God Story. I\u2019ve had the honor of teaching through it once or twice, and I\u2019ve listened to others teach it a dozen times or so. I feel like every time I go through it, teaching or listening, I realize just how much I don\u2019t know. This time was no different.<\/p>\n

As I was prepping for Act I this time around I got really interested in this question of \u201cWhat was God\u2019s motivation in creation?\u201d Basically, why? Why did he do it? Why did he take on this monumental task of creating the universe? What moved his hand to start sketching out planets, tectonic plates, willow trees, and chipmunks?<\/p>\n

Simon Senek says to\u00a0start with why<\/a>. So why\u2019d you do it, God?<\/p>\n

ENTER THE WEIGHTINESS<\/h3>\n

I did some Bible searches using keywords phrases like \u201ccreated for\u201d I was led to a passage in Isaiah where the prophet is speaking on God\u2019s behalf to the Israelites. He says,<\/p>\n

I will say to the north, Give up,
\nand to the south, Do not withhold;
\nbring my sons from afar
\nand my daughters from the end of the earth,
\neveryone who is called by my name,
\nwhom I created for my glory,<\/strong>
\nwhom I formed and made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaiah 43:6-7 (obviously Isaiah did not speak in bold letters. I added that.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God, speaking through Isaiah, says that he created these people for his glory. That\u2019s his \u201cwhy.\u201d There is this thing called God\u2019s glory, and Israel was created for it.<\/p>\n

Heavy stuff, right?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, you\u2019re probably no closer to cracking this nut.<\/p>\n

TAKING A WHACK AT IT<\/h3>\n

John Piper says, \u201cGlory is very hard thing to define\u2026\u201d and if J. Pipes himself is saying stuff like that you know it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Turns out I had been defining it poorly, though I couldn\u2019t have articulated my definition until this point. You see, I had skipped \u201ccreated for my glory\u201d and gone straight to this idea that we ought to be \u201cglorifying God,\u201d or \u201cgiving God glory.\u201d It\u2019s a subtle difference, but it turned out to be pretty significant.<\/p>\n

To me, glorifying God meant that I needed to give him worship and praise and make his name famous on the earth. I thought that somehow what God ultimately wanted was for me to show the world how great he is. I began to follow that train of thought and realized, \u201cWait a second\u2026 if God\u2019s ultimate goal is for his people to tell him how great he is that\u2019s kind of conceited, right? I mean, is he hungry for some kind of cosmic ego boost he gets every time we sing \u201cHow Great is Our God\u201d (in English, then in Spanish, then the chorus in English again\u2026 extra points for an obscure African language.)?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a very appealing picture of God.<\/p>\n

Luckily, it\u2019s not the real picture of God. Paul clarifies this when he says,<\/p>\n

God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is he worshipped with men\u2019s hands,\u00a0as though he needed anything<\/strong>, since he gives to all life, breath, and all things (Acts 17:24,25).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God didn\u2019t say, \u201cI created you to glorify me.\u201d He created us for his glory. Glorifying is a verb. Glory is a noun. I jumped right to the\u00a0doing<\/em>\u00a0version of the word without first understanding the\u00a0being<\/em>\u00a0side of it.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re kind back to square one, right?\u00a0What the heck does glory mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOHN PIPER TO THE RESCUE<\/h3>\n

J. Pipes is the man. He offers an incredibly helpful definition that steered me in the right direction. The short version says,<\/p>\n

The glory of God is the beauty and excellence of his manifold perfections. It is an attempt to put into words what God is like in his magnificence and purity. It refers to his infinite and overflowing fullness of all that is good. (John Piper)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glory is an attempt to articulate all that is good. If you took every thing that is good in the world and put it in a bottle, you\u2019d have a glory bottle in your hand. If you can imagine every kind gesture, feeling of love, sacrificial action, quality carne asada burrito, monsoon in the desert, and beautiful sunset gets crammed into your living room, then you\u2019ve got a glorious living room.<\/p>\n

I defined it this way:\u00a0Glory is the atmosphere of God.\u00a0<\/strong>Every good, pure and beautiful thing in this world comes from God, and only exists because there is part of God\u2019s character in it. When you experience something good, you are experience glory. When you are experience glory, you are experiencing God.<\/p>\n

John Mark and Sarah McMillan released a song a year or two ago called\u00a0The Goodness<\/a>, and the opening line is<\/p>\n

When the day has run its course
\nYou are the goodness<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that\u2019s what glory is. It\u2019s the goodness of God. Think about it like you were eating brunch with the Father, Son, and Spirit. You look around the table and there\u2019s smiling, warmth, love, affection, humility. Then you look down at the table, and there\u2019s waffles, and bacon (bacon is glory, let\u2019s be honest). Your heart swells with contentment at the perfection of dining with the Trinity. It\u2019s so fulfilling.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because it\u2019s what you were created for.<\/p>\n

THE IMPLICATIONS<\/h3>\n

With this understanding, that Isaiah passage could now be read,<\/p>\n

whom I created to experience the goodness and perfect of me!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow! That\u2019s not a selfish God at all. This God created humanity because he wanted them to experience\u00a0good.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>He wanted them to get in on the love and affection that he was experiencing with the Trinity.<\/p>\n

This paints a picture of God that lines up with the overarching narrative of Scripture: that God is a good Father. He wasn\u2019t playing some distorted game, or running some grand experiment in creating the heavens and the earth and all humanity. He did it because he\u2019s a good Dad that wanted a family that would eternally enjoy his goodness.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t mind getting to know that God more. And I wouldn\u2019t mind experiencing that kind of glory more often.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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