Praying for His Glory
Last week we examined the glory of God. This week we’ll look at why we should pray for God’s glory. Why are your sins forgiven? The reason is for His namesake…for his glory. If our Christianity rests on anything else, it’s Humanism not Christianity. The problems are not in the Church, the body and bride of Christ which God called to be spotless because of the perfect payment of Jesus Christ’s innocent blood. The problem is in the “perception of the so-called church.” Christianity cannot be understood in light of Humanism. The philosophy of Humanism is “the glory of Man.” The root of Humanism is the devil’s original lie that he told Eve in the Garden of Eden, “You shall be as God knowing good from evil.” The truth of the Word of God focuses on the glory of God rather than the glory of man. The glory of God must be understood in light of “substance” or weight according to the Word of God. The adversary’s job is to deceive the elect of God. If we see according to the eyes of the flesh instead of the eyes of the spirit of Christ in us we will be deceived. Because we pray doesn’t mean we’re doing the right thing. Prayer is aligning our heart with God’s heart, not vice versa. If we pray like the Pharisee, “I’m glad I’m not like those sinners over there,” our prayer is not a righteous prayer. Prayer must be according to the glory of God in order to be effective. The promises of God are an offer to accept the terms and conditions of His promise. Believing action according to the Word of God is the only way to accept the promise of God. Our righteousness is in the strength of our Lord Jesus Christ…his strength is made perfect in our weakness.
When the Children of Israel refused to enter into the Promised Land because they did not believe that God would deliver their enemies into their hands, who did Moses pray for? Did he pray for the people? Moses did not pray for the people, rather he prayed that God would uphold the honor of his own glory. God revealed to Moses that he did not need to pray as a priest on behalf of the people to intercede for them. Rather he needed to understand that everything is insignificant compared to the glory of God. The glory is not to judge the unrighteousness people. Rather the glory is for God to judge according to His own righteousness glory. Paul prayed that “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that ye may know the hope of your calling…and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints. The understanding is to know the riches of God’s glory…His inheritance in us.
Our prayer needs to be that God sends his power at the right time and place for his honor and glory. Tribulation and trials are so that we can understand the glory of God to deliver and that we are but dust compared to the awesome power of His own glory.
According to Psalm 107: “O GIVE thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
2. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; 3. And gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south.
4. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
5. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
6. Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.
7. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation.
8. Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
9. For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”
God has a different standard that we do. The good is the enemy of the best. The best is that we turn to God for deliverance. The best thing is that His people have such a longing for heaven that whether they live or die doesn’t matter but rather that the Glory of God be done. This is the prayer of the Apostle Paul who said that whether by death or by life, that God may be glorified. “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” Nothing in this life can be compared with the glory that shall follow. When that which is perfect is come then we shall know even as also as we are known. For we know that when He shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.
Each year around Easter, the culture presents stories about the “passion of the Christ” about the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some people are moved to tears but others are not. His death and resurrection was not about our glory but rather about the glory of God our Father. The significance of the suffering and death of our Lord is not the glory of God. Many unbelievers have suffered and died for their convictions. Even the terrorists who crashed the planes into the Twin Towers on 9/11 died deliberately for their convictions. Jesus was not your ordinary “martyr.” What’s the difference about Jesus’s death upon the cross? The “cup” that Jesus asked God to take from him in the Garden of Gethsemane was not the cup of pain and suffering and death. The “cup” rather, was the weight of the sin of the world that we inherited from Adam. The significance of his death was separation from his Heavenly Father. Surely he hath borne our griefs, upon him was laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He who was without sin became the perfect sin sacrifice on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in him. The significance of Jesus’s death is that he shed “innocent” blood. Jesus is the only one who lived a sinless life. The wages of sin is death. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way…….but upon him he hath laid the iniquity of us all.
They did not and could not kill Jesus Christ. He willingly laid down his life for the joy that was set before him. The strength of the gospel is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life. The death of Jesus Christ was the propitiation, the full payment, the atoning sacrifice for our sins. When God raised him from the dead, the resurrection was to the glory of God the father.
Paul said, “I bear on my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He also said, “thy strength is made perfect in my weakness….thy grace is sufficient for me.” The Apostle Peter said, “I count it joy that I can suffer for my Lord.” In our lives filled with pain, pressure, and tribulation, our prayer should not be “Lord deliver me from the storm.” Rather, our prayer should be, “Lord deliver me through the storm.”
We cannot do anything to give God more glory. All we can do is reflect the glory of God. He is the source of all glory. For we all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed from the glory of the flesh to the glory of God even by the spirit of the Lord.
Our goal is not to be “culturally relevant” but rather to be “heavenly relevant.” According to Phillipians 2:15., “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world…” It’s not about the glory of deliverance. Instead it’s about His glory… It’s not about who we are…. Rather, It’s about Whose we are.
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ.
Michael