I decided to launch this note as a spin off of the key phrase in Wreck-It-Ralph...Boston's favorite flick.
Wreck-It Ralph: I am bad and that's good, I will never be good and that's not bad, there's no one I would rather be than me.
Here it is: God is for me and that's good. God is for God and that's not bad. God's glory in me is best for me.
There are a handful of truths that have so completely turned my life upside down that I base almost everything I do/teach on them. They are so profound and totally encompassing that you'll find their hands in all of scripture. I have found that the more I focus on these overarching few truths, the better off I am.
A few of them are: Man must have faith in what God has said. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. I can do all things, and only things by Christ who strengthens me. We must be confident in our position, if we are to be impactful in our condition... etc.
One of the most revolutionizing that: When God seeks his own glory in my life, it is actually the most loving act possible towards me. God's aim and effort to glorify himself is very loving (not selfish) and is without fault of any kind and is very different from human self-exaltation and it is a supreme act of love.
Let me explain....
God Pursues His Own Praise
Everything he does is motivated by his desire to be glorified. God's goal in all he does is to receive praise for the glory of his name.
For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.
It's pretty clear that even our salvation is under the purpose of his own gathering of glory:
Listen to Ephesians 1. There is a phrase repeated three times in verses 6, 12, and 14 which makes it very clear what Paul thinks is the goal of God in saving us from sin and for himself. Notice verses 5 and 6:
He predestined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.
Then verse 12:
We who first hoped in Christ...have been appointed to live for the praise of his glory.
Finally, verse 14:
The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.
His goal in the end is that he might be admired, marveled at, exalted, and praised. Christ is coming, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, at the end of this age, "to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at by all who believe."
Some people have a very hard time swallowing all this however, because it makes God appear to be selfish. And doesn't God love us? Because doesn't John 3:16 say that "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son?" Wasn't salvation based strictly on his love? Was he for us when he saved us or for himself?
It is all right for God to be praised, but it doesn't seem quite right for him to seek praise. Didn't Jesus say, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted"? Yet, God's clear purpose from Scripture is to exalt himself in the eyes of man.
There are two reasons, I think, why we may stumble over God's love for his own glory and his zeal to get men to praise him for it.One is that we don't like humans who act that way, and the other is that the Bible seems to teach that a person ought not to seek his own glory.
First, we just don't like people who seem to be very enamored by their own skill or power or looks.
Second, we are told not to be self seeking...1 Corinthians 13:5 says,"Love seeks not its own." So this, seems to create a crisis: if, God makes it his ultimate goal to be glorified and praised, how then can he be loving? How is it not selfish and self-centered for God to be seeking his own glory, and how it is in fact loving??
Scriptures that teach that God is for himself. "For my own sake, for my own sake I do it, my glory I will not give to another" (Isaiah 48:11). But if God is a God of love, he must be for us. Is God for himself or is he for us?
The Infinite Love of God in Pursuing His Own Praise
The answer is: because God is unique as the most glorious of all beings and totally self-sufficient, he must be for himself in order to be for us. If he were to abandon the goal of his own self-exaltation, we would be the losers. His aim to bring praise to himself and his aim to bring pleasure to his people are one aim and stand or fall together.
(For any other creature to seek self exaltation and praise would be SELFISH, because every other creature is NOT supremely valuable.)
Think about this: What could God give us to enjoy that would show him most (perfectly) loving?There is only one possible answer, isn't there? HIMSELF!
If God would give us the best, the most satisfying thing,that is, if he would love us perfectly, he must offer us no less than himself for our contemplation and fellowship. Because, isn't God the best there actually is??
And this was God's very intention in sending his Son.
Ephesians 2:18 says that Christ came that we might "have access in one Spirit to the Father." And 1 Peter 3:18 says,"Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God."God conceived the whole plan of redemption in love to bring men back to himself, for as the psalmist says, "In your presence there is fullness of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore" (16:11). God is after us to give us what is best—not prestige,wealth, or even health in this life, but a full-blown vision of and fellowship with himself.
Therefore, if God is truly for us, if he would give us what is best... we must know that, he must make it his aim to win our praise for himself. Not because he needs to shore up some weakness in himself or compensate for some deficiency, but because he loves us and seeks our best that can only be found in knowing and praising him, the most beautiful of all beings.
God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking his own praise is the ultimately loving act. For him self-exaltation is the highest virtue. When he doesall things "for the praise of his glory" as Ephesians 1 says, he preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world which can satisfy our longings. God is for us, and therefore has been, is now, and always will be, for himself.
