Credit or Glory?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

People pray all the time that God will be glorified in something we do. They regularly ascribe glory to Him, saying that He gets glory for some grand thing they've done or promising Him glory if He does something we want Him to do. I think maybe we've confused "glory" with "credit."

And there is a big difference.

In the Greek, "to glorify" means "to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged."

Christ prays in John 17, "Reveal me. Cause my worth to be manifest through what I am about to do."

If He does something we want or need, we give Him credit. Sure, we couldn't have done it without Him.

Yet how much of what we do actually stems from our desire to reveal Him for who He is? How often do we pray with a longing for Him to manifest Himself? Do we really recognize His revelation of Himself in our daily bread? We want to be like Him, but do we really want Him to reveal Himself in us?

Someone painted me a mental picture once, of a bride whose groom chose her dress and her flowers and her hairstyle. He chose her jewelry and her veil and her shoes. All of the music around her, the decorations, and the programs were designed by him, to draw attention to her beauty. When she walked down the aisle, it seemed as if the whole world caught its breath. The whispers could be heard throughout the auditorium: "Look what he has done... she is breathtaking! How beautiful!"

The groom's heart for his bride was revealed in her beauty, and the world could see him for who he was.

I think we try hard to make ourselves "beautiful" for our Lord by giving Him the credit for our efforts. But if we are to glorify Him, He has to reveal Himself in us. We won't even have to redirect the praise. The world will know it is Him.

6 comments:

the Joneses said...

I've heard "give God the glory" so often that it doesn't even register, except to remind me that it doesn't make any sense. "Give God the credit," on the other hand, makes much more sense.

I need to ponder the Glory part for a bit longer, though, before I grasp what you're saying. I mean, if the congregation at the wedding didn't know who got the credit for the bride's appearance, they wouldn't know who got the glory. The two are linked.

Great post. I like having things to muse on throughout the day.

the Joneses said...

(That was SJ, not DJ, although you probably got that. :) )

Kelly Sauer said...

Oh good point, SJ! Isn't it funny what you CAN'T write because once you start, it goes all over the map?

nic said...

I have never heard that analogy - I love it!

Lindsay Christine said...

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts here. I am actually in the middle of working on Beth Moore's Breaking free. My lesson today is on glory! You're insight has perfect timing. Thank you and thank you for your encouraging post.

Lindsay

Flying Pen said...

Lovely, just a lovely post!

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