The Chief End of Man

I recently asked this question to some friends: What is the purpose of your life? What is the reason God created you? After a discussion, my answer came out: What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Over the past few days I have been reading/studying the topic: to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. What does it practically mean to glorify God? As I live my life, day in and day out, being a husband, father, student, and working in full time ministry – what does it look like??

First I had to define the term. Glory is defined as the honor that everything in the universe ascribes to God. To glorify God in our lives would mean our actions and motives are set on honoring God with every area of our lives. That is the meaning of the famous verse in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” As Christians we are slaves to Jesus. Everything we do, say, or think is done in a way to honor our King Jesus. Or to say it another way, we are PR agents for God.

However, our hearts produce idols, idols of every kind.  We can easily give glory to things, ideas, people, or causes. What we honor gets our time, energy, and money. What we honor, we sacrifice for. As Believers, we are slaves to Jesus and Him only. BUT.. idols pop up and we have to recognize them and repent. Examples of what can easily take our honor:

·         Sports teams – (money) People give $1,000’s of dollars for season tickets and $1000’s to enhance the stadium, (time) spend hours upon hours watching it, (emotions) emotions fly – up/down.

·         People – We can easily idolize certain people. This can be a politician, pastor, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, child, mother, father, or even your own self. What they say becomes the Bible. We copy them – what they dress like, we eat what they eat, and our self esteem is all wrapped up in what they think about us. Worse of all is living our lives through our children.

·         Causes – This should be VERY CLEAR to you with all the facebook post on politics since the recent government shutdown. Sometimes we care more about being right than honoring Jesus.

·         Holding to a certain theological position – I have seen people get so wrapped on a theological position they everybody that does not agree with them is of the devil and everybody that agrees with them is Jesus. A way to evaluate yourself is: Do you take it personally when others don’t agree with you? Are you easily aggravated at others who do not agree with you? Trust me; you don’t want to become the next cult leader.

·         Yourself – When I was in Romania I asked several pastors what they thought the number one idol was in America. Their answer --- yourself!!

·         There are many, many more…. For example – appearances (we live in the airbrush generation and thus eating disorders is a common sin among many young ladies), your status, money, and your reputation just to name a few.

My prayer is that of Paul’s in Romans 11:36, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be GLORY forever. Amen."