Current topic: Pray with us for the Church. Remember you can still pray for Families.
Good morning. Have you started the Lord’s Bucket List for you?
Keeping that in mind I feel the Lord have something for those in leadership, but also for all of us in various areas of our lives where we perform well.
“Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God,” (Exodus 34:14).
“For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God,” (Deuteronomy 4:24).
“If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing,” (John 15:5).
What do we do with the glory that comes our way? Do we just quietly enjoy it or do we refer it to the Lord? I have written about this before, but the Lord wants me to approach it from a different angle, since this is very important to Him.
Jesus said that we can do nothing without Him just as He could do nothing without His father. The Lord deserves all the glory for everything. “For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever,” (Matthew 6:13). I’m convinced that the solving of many crimes were due to the Lord’s intervention and so can many discoveries, great ideas and inventions be attributed to Him. In the life of Christians the recognition of every success we’ve had should go to the Lord, for without Him we can do nothing. Within seconds He can take our ability away. “On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, ‘This is the voice of a god, not of a man.’ Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died,” (Acts 12:21-23).
If the Lord deals more with us like He dealt with the people of Acts, we may have more respect for Him. When we’ve done something great in the name of the Lord, such as delivering a great message, having prayed and a miracle happened or even something in terms of sport or work success and people glorify us, it’s up to us to acknowledge the Lord and pass the glory on to Him. The Lord will keep the person who received the glory responsible for stealing His glory and not the person giving it. There is nothing wrong with encouraging one another for we need to urge one another on, but in the same breath we need to praise the Lord.
This is the first and foremost will of the Father that He and only He receives glory. The Ten Commandments starts with it and in the summary of the commandments that Jesus gave He said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength,” (Mark 12:30). Taking God’s glory for you is being disobedient to these commands and causes you to do something that’s outside of God’s will, subjecting you to the danger of Him not recognising you when you report to Him one day. “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven, but whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven,” (Matthew 10:32, 33) and “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven,” (Matthew 7:21).
Let’s encourage one another, but purposefully give the glory to God from the depths of our hearts lest we miss entering the Kingdom of heaven.
Can you tick this off the Lord’s Bucket List for you?
Lord, all the glory belongs to you.
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Excellent Henry
ReplyDeletePraise be to Jesus!
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