Future Grace, Living a Life that gives God All the Glory.

Firstly let me apologize for being silent for so long. Actually I have been bursting to share some of the wonderful insights I have been experiencing. However last Thursday, without warning, Telkom suspended my service. Not just cut me off, suspended me completely. It was entirely illegal and uncalled for. It had to do with a glitch in their bookkeeping system. So finally I was reconnected today, through the intervention of a fellow-Christian who kows someone at Telkom.

Now during the last few days of of frustration, I have been facing a conviction from the Lord. Some time ago I started to ask God to reveal more of what His glory is about. I occasioned to listen to a bit of a course John Piper is giving called “future grace, battling unbelief”, last Wednesday evening. In the introductory section he makes the following 4 points: 1. Our attitude should never be that we are serving God (as if He needs our service). Mark 10:45 summarizes this: “The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Conclusion – God is a giver. Yes we serve but not as it were to enrich God, but rather as a spinoff coming from His bountiful gifts wrapped up in His Son Jesus. 2.Everything God does is aimed at bringing Himself Glory. So our service to others, our behaviour towards the world and in the light of the many difficulties we experience etc should always be to bring Him glory 1 Peter 4:11″ If anyone serves he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be glory and power for ever”.

Now John Piper’s slogan “God desires our good and is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him!. (In sickness and difficulty as well as health and prosperity.)

Then 3.The importance of Holiness – we cannot see God without holiness Heb 12:14.

Piper also defined what he meant by the term “future grace”. Not some far distant fulfilment of God’s promises, but like a river flowing towards you and minute by minute spilling over you like a wave of His goodness.

So I started meditating on how my attitude must change so that I constantly see God as a giver and serve HIm in such a way that He gets the glory, and also to understand how this is reflected practically in holiness. My attention was drawn to what He seemed to be saying to me: “In your service for me you attract a certain amount of attention and admiration, in all this are you bringing Me glory? From now on be careful to reflect everything you do or say to My glory”. He then reminded me of that beautiful sentence in Ephesians 1 which is bracketed by the phrase “to the praise of His glory”. Everything He has done for us is summarized by that phrase.

So that was the theory on 30th Oct. The practical followed that same day. I discovered, as I said in my introduction that my Telkom service was suspended. During Friday and over the next 4 days I spent several hours on the phone in a fruitless effort to get things sorted out. The temptation was to rant to the world but I kept thinking “how can this be to he praise of God’s glory?” Well so far I am so relieved that things are sorted out, as I look back I can see that God allowed this whole unpleasant affair to happen to test, among other things, my resolve to give Him the glory. I could mention a number of things that have been churning around in my head, but at this stage I will hold my words, except to reflect back on James 1:3:2-4.

May this be the beginning of a renewed effort to give Him the glory in all things and to remind myself to be most satisfied in Him.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!