What Life Is All About

Isaiah 43:7 says, "Bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory." We were created to glorify God-- this is the purpose of our existence and the reason we are alive. Life isn't about us, and it never has been. Psalm 19 tells us that the heavens proclaim the glory of God- that's why the universe was created. Isaiah 43 tells us that's why we were made. And most suprising of all, Romans 11 and Ephesians 1 that we we were saved to "glorify God for His mercy," and "for the praise of His glorious grace." Not even salvation is ultimately about us! Jesus lived and died to rescue us from the tomb of self-esteem and self-focus, and to free us to live the life we were created to enjoy- a life that makes much of Him.

What Does This Mean For Us?

C.S. Lewis and John Piper are two gifted individuals who have perhaps best captured the relationship between God's glory and our lives. C.S. Lewis said, "A car is made to run on gasoline, and it won't run properly on anything else. Now, the human machine was designed to run on God. He is the fuel our spirits are made to burn. There is no other." Trying to live for anything else than the glory of God leaves us coming up short, unfulfilled and unsatisfied. That's where John Piper coems in. "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." The way to glorify God with our lives is to find Him to be the highest Treasure in the world. This is one of the great wonders of the Christian life: that our satisfaction and joy in knowing God is the very means by which He is most glorified. Jesus died to open up the way to a relationship with Himself; John 17:3 says "Now this is eternal life- to know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." That's what eternal life is all about- knowing Him! And knowing Him is the best possible thing in the world. "I count everything as a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:7). Everything in the world is as nothing compared to simply knowing Him.