One of the hardest things for us to grasp is that life is not about us. We do not serve as the center of the universe. Everything does not revolve around us but far too often we falsely think that it does when the reality is that everything exists for God and it is all about Him.
The very reason why God created the world was to bring Himself glory. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork (Psalm 19:1). As our Good Shepherd, He guides us in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake (Psalm 23:3). David knew that his pleas for God’s mercy must be grounded in who God is and not in himself (Psalm 25:11; 79:9). God’s salvation of Israel and us was ultimately for His glory (Psalm 106:8; 106:8; Isaiah 48:9, 11; Ezekiel 36:22-23; Ephesians 1:4-6). As we read through the Old Testament, we find over and over again God saying that He does or doesn’t do such and such for the sake of His great name or so that His name would not be dishonored or shamed among the nations. So, God is all about God. His chief concern is to bring Himself glory.
We want it to be all about us though, don’t we? We often seem to think that God’s sole desire is to please us and grant our wishes. (This can be seen in our prayers many times. Hence, why we can so easily get upset when He doesn’t answer the way that we would like Him to or find ourselves disappointed in the way that He chooses to respond.) Or we entertain the idea that God sent Jesus to the cross on account of Him thinking that we are so great. But the truth of the matter is that God sent Jesus to the cross ultimately to bring glory to His name. Jesus’ aim was to glorify His Father through the redemptive rescue of rebel sinners. He even prayed right before the cross, Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You (John 17:1).
One thing that the Holy Spirit seeks to do through the words of Scripture is to bring about what we could call a “Copernican Revolution” in our lives. Nicolaus Copernicus was the one to discover that the sun actually served as the center of the universe with all of the planets revolving around it. Up until that time, everyone had believed the earth to be at the center of the universe and that the sun and the rest of the planets revolved around it. Such a discovery was shocking to the established view of the time but necessary for us to understand the reality of the universe that we live in. It may be shocking for us to come to realize this truth that everything ultimately centers around God but necessary so that we can understand what our life must be about. Or, better put, Who our life must be about. It helps us recognize our place as well. As God’s creature with Him as our Creator whom we owe everything to. That we were made for Him and not for ourselves to live as we please.
We will never live our lives rightly if we fail to view God as the center of it. Things just do not function as they ought to whenever we try to usurp the place that God Himself occupies. If the earth would one day decide that it would no longer desire to revolve around the sun but would just remain still and wait for everything to begin circling around it, it would not be able to function because it was designed to be in orbit around the greater sun, and in such an orbit, functions and is sustained. The world in which we live simply does not have the ability and strength to pull and hold everything in orbit around it. Likewise, things will not be in the right place in our lives if we consistently fail to view and treat God as being in the center of all of it. True joy can never be found with us in the center but with God because God alone is qualified to serve as that center of everything due to the very nature of Him being God.
And the fact that God is all about God with His main goal being His glory is good news for us. The very grounds of our eternal assurance of our salvation can be said to be found in it. If God’s saving and preserving of us was centered on who we are rather than who He is, we would be in a heap of trouble. We would have every reason to fear God giving up on us on account of our sins. Even our faith can be fickle at times and the Puritans were right that our repentance needs to be repented of. We provide God with a number of reasons to give up on us. But if His saving of us and preserving of us is ultimately based on who He is and for His glory, then we have no reason to ever be fearful that He will ever abandon us. This was the case for the Israelite's after their many sins. God said to them following the rejection of Him as king that they could be assured that He would not abandon them on account of His great name, because the LORD has been pleased to make you a people for Himself (1 Samuel 12:22). Not based on their name and who they were but on account of God’s greater and supreme name. It was all on account of God’s reputation and His pleasure or desire to make the people His own. If it wasn’t for such a desire to exalt His great name in the purchasing and keeping of such sinful rebels, none of us would have any hope to be saved. Aren’t you glad then that God ultimately is all about His own glory?
So, let’s be sure that the One who is the center of the universe serves as the center of our lives. That we make it our goal to, as Paul instructs us, whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). May God continue to grant us the grace for us not to view and act as if everything is about us but to rightly have everything in our lives revolve around Him, as it has been designed to do.
Love in Christ,
Pastor Lee
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