We are out for a walk along a wondrous trail and we come across a berry tree. I think these are called boysen berries with emphasis on B as in boy, not P as in poison. But this bush grows massively.
Somebody might call these blackberries and I am so enjoying them and I just said, "Thank You. Gratitude, glory to God," and then I thought of the definition of bringing glory to God.
So God is obviously light. Scripture says God defines Himself. "In Him is no darkness at all." That means He's above a 100 million watt bulb. He's the biggest, the best, the brightest, zero darkness, therefore it's somewhat comedy to say that we can add only light to the glow of God.
He's already so glowing that no light can be added to that which is already zero darkness and complete light. So what does it mean to bring glory to God? It certainly cannot mean to add light.
The True Purpose of Creation
What then could possibly be the meaning if the purpose of life and the structure of this tree this bush is to give glory to God? How does this tree and how do we fulfill one of our key performance indicators which is bringing glory to God?
Number one: We want to direct attention toward God. Oh yeah, that makes it nod the head, nod the head. So if any element in nature, including the humans, can direct attention toward their maker, they are thereby accomplishing a portion of their purpose of bringing glory, deflecting glory, directing glory, which the word "glory" here has to mean that we acknowledge the true identity of the one true God Who made these delicious berries, right? Amen.
And then this tree, I thought to myself, probably is a happy tree right now because it's accomplishing its purpose as given by its creator to cause people to think more highly about God. Since God Himself cannot become any higher, maybe it's me that needs to think more highly of Him.
Elevating Others' Perception of God
And so then I heard a pastor once say, and I think it's fairly close to true, that we give glory to God when we give other people a better opinion of Him, and I know that's a complex concept because everybody has an opinion of God. Everyone should already have the highest possible opinion of God. Some people think Mary is equal or somewhat similar in the ballpark to God, which is so sad, He has no equal, no one else in the arena.
God is God, according to His own definition, and to stay on topic, giving glory to God is not only directing people toward Him, but elevating their perception of who He is.
Now, wow. Who am I and who are you to carry out this task? I mean, what a huge what a huge opportunity what an amazingly glorious adventure to give people are high a higher opinion.
Everything that we do should be giving other people a higher opinion of who God is. Right whether therefore you for you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God? Does that mean that I personally simply recognize the glory of God? It's Fourth of July weekend, or does that mean that I'm helping others recognize the glory of God?
All Creation Gives Praise
Wow, those cicadas, they're really chirpin and buzzin', they're trying to give glory to. I'll let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. To praise is to elevate, enunciate, burst forth, glow.
I think it's similar. When we give praise to God, we are doing very, very much similar motions as to when we give glory. I think the revelation term is worthy. Recognize Him as worthy. Worthy is the lamb that was slain. Worthy is our maker, our designer.
If He can make the berries, He can make the birds, if He can make the birds and the berries, He can make the bugs, He can make the brain that makes the bicycle, He can make the bifocal. He can make all of us all of biology. He's super brilliant. He's high. He's above.
The Designer of Everything
He makes the leaves that receive the sunshine. He mixes the nitrogen with the oxygen and the phosphate and the potassium and the potash and the lime. He sets the pH of the soil, He controls the flow of the water, He regulates the edges of sanity.
He's high and holy and amazing and clean and good and pure and right and His nature is His original fingerprint is reflected in His intention of what He created.
Now we mess it up and then we want to blame Him. We get confused and then want to say it's God's fault. We, mere mortals, experience fear and doubt and selfishness and then somehow can't handle the responsibility that goes along with our own nature.
God is not a man that He should lie.
Now, our dear friends, the Muslims, they love that verse because they only read half of it. They like to put a punctuation where God put no punctuation or they like to put a period where God put a comma. The verse says, "God is not a man that He should lie." In other words, God's not like humans in this one particular respect, God's not a liar like humans are. That's what the Bible does not say, God is not a man. It says God does not behave according to some of the proclivities of human nature such as God Who does not lie. That's what it means.
But anyway, humans like to blame God for our problems and what we should do is just elevate God, acknowledge God, appreciate God, lift Him up to the proper position in our lives such that everyone around us knows that we love Him, we're not ashamed of Him, we are strongly associated with Him, we're ready to talk about Him, we're ready to share what we believe. We're ready to participate. We pray for our food. We stop for the berries. We enjoy the snack. We listen to the birds. We love not nature, but the God of nature.
Looking to the Author
You know, it's a whole other episode. So if you want to hit pause, here comes another one. The author is the main object of our faith. Looking onto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. It doesn't say looking onto Jesus, just the words. He's the originator, He's the crafter, He's the choreographer, He's the orchestrator of all language, the pacing, the tone, the delivery, the enunciation, the persuasion, the tears, the emotion, the tenor.
Not only so, He's a great musician, but the reason why we love the framing and the artistry, the ambience of the stilted, lifted, poetic terms that are so endearing that burst forth upon the page of antiquity.
