To God be the Glory

“He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.” (Rom. 4:20).

We are living in an age when our Christian faith is being attacked from all sides. It seems that we are able to say anything against Christianity today with little or no consequences! We just roll over and accept it. What kind of a witness does that make us? How can non-believers accept our Christian faith when we don’t even honour it enough to stand up for it? Where is our glory to God? We must not become milk toast Christians who say they worship the God of Israel but in reality are also worshipping other gods as well. This is not giving all the glory to God! “. . . and those who (pretend) to worship the Lord and swear by and to Him, and yet swear by and to Malcam (their idol king).” (Zeph. 1:5 Amplified Bible). We must not intertwine the thoughts of men and their gods with those of the God of Israel. God calls this an abomination. If we do this then the TRUTH becomes a lie, and we are deceived. It makes God’s Word of none effect.

We must be humble! It is time for us to take God seriously. Our sin is destroying us. I don’t know why we always try to bring God down to our level and to fit Him into what we want to believe. Why can we not reverence Him and trust Him in what He says? It isn’t easy today, but we must not let our integrity be compromised. We are God’s witnesses. If we falter and weaken, allowing ourselves to be manipulated away from our faith then we have let God down and must show ourselves accountable. “Ye are my witness, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.” (Isa. 43:10).

The world is in a mess. Many are looking for something to give them hope. There is enough confusion in this world without us adding more confusion to their lives. We must be sincere, kind and humble when speaking of the hope that is in us. We must be confident in the Word of God. If the foundation be destroyed there is no truth in us. We must give God the glory, not ourselves! Vanity is empty and useless. It is futile. Our pride will destroy us!

I don’t understand how we can be so vain and prideful when we look at our wonderful Saviour. He came to earth from heaven as a baby to become man and to die on the Cross for us. Yet, we think we have all the answers and know better! How arrogant we are. It is time for us to humble ourselves and take our sin seriously or we are lost. We must discipline ourselves in order to honour the glory of God’s name. We must not associate with those who say they are Christians (brethren) but are unrepentant sinners. This is serious. We must pray for them to open their hearts and minds to Christ but not let them have any influence with us. Paul speaks of this in 1Cor. 5:1-3. He also says that we are to put away anyone from amongst us who is a fornicator, is covetous, or an idolator; or a slanderer, or a swindler.

We must not be so proud that, although we have much knowledge, we are not taking sin seriously! It is very serious. We are God’s servants on earth. We are to be the light in a dark world, but we cannot shine through if we allow darkness into our midst. We must “stand up, stand up for Jesus”, as the song goes.

These are difficult times. We have so many things influencing us from all sides. We must not let our emotions, feelings and our own thoughts take us away from God’s word. If we have doubts and questions we must pray about them and search the Scriptures. I believe that when we pray about something and we want to give God the glory, we receive the answer. As an example, just before Christmas I was invited to a friend’s for dinner. I was concerned about going as I was worried that the blessing on the food would be a New Age prayer, as had happened on a previous visit. I have been praying for these friends to come to Christ for awhile now. I prayed about this blessing on the food for many weeks before the dinner. I had been thinking that “wouldn’t it be nice if the host asked me to give the blessing on the food, as they knew that I was a Christian.” Well, my prayer was answered. This is exactly what happened and Jesus Christ was glorified at that dinner. They actually thanked me for the nice prayer! We should never be afraid to give Jesus the glory and honour He deserves!

“Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”
(John 15: 4-8).