To God be the Glory

Daily Devotions with Pastor Chuck

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I hope your soul is peaceful. Peaceful in the sense that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are in Christ, having received Him for all that He is, having believed upon Him, making the good confession of Him just as Thomas made of Him . . . “My Lord and my God!”

Are you missing the mark or hitting the mark?

Yesterday we looked at missing the point, of having one’s focus on self rather than on God. We understand that all too often, in these times in which we live, people in the church are letting their light shine before men that their good works might be seen and they might receive the attention, the recognition, the honor, the praise, and the glory. As the title noted, “Talk About Missing The Point!”

As the Holy Spirit instructs us, it is God who always deserves and should receive all the recognition, all the honor, all the praise, all the glory. After three wonderful chapters of how God, in Christ, has, by His grace, wrought salvation for a fallen world, saved a people who were dead in their sins and transgressions, the Spirit says in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus,

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think . . . to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21 – NASB)

Talk about hitting the mark!

This is to be the Christian mindset: “to Him [Jesus] who is able” to save and regenerate the soul of a rebellious people, a people who fall so very short of His glory (Romans 3:23). We are a people who deserve judgment, but instead receive grace…”to Him be the glory . . . forever and ever!”

Romans 3:23 lets us know in no uncertain terms that man’s glory is tainted and it falls so very short of the glory of God. Man, in his depraved state, seeks glory, seeks recognition, seeks praise and seeks honor. But can only seek and find it from other men, for in his sin He is separated from his Creator, the righteous and holy Creator in whose image man was created.

When, by God’s grace, man comes to realize this, to understand his state, his selfish, sinful state, and his need for saving, he is then able to repent and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Knowing Jesus man will reject any glory for himself and humbly confesses, “to Him be the glory . . . forever and ever.”

Talk about hitting the mark! “To Him be the glory!”

That’s it! To God the Creator, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “to Him be” all honor, and all praise, and all adoration, and “glory!” And let it be so “forever and ever. Amen!”

The old hymn speaks, performed in a contemporary manner, so beautifully reminds us…

To Him, who alone deserves all praise, all honor, all recognition, all “glory!” He and He alone deserves “the glory . . . forever and ever!” We can all say “Amen” to that!