We are looking at specific ways of living in light of what God’s created purpose for humanity is. God created human beings to be instruments (instrumental end) by which He would glorify Himself by and through. That is our created purpose and all that we do must be in subjection to that. God’s chief and ultimate end (terminal end) in creating was to display and manifest His own glory. Humanity must realize that all that they do is judged by God’s purpose for them and not their own purposes and standards.
Last time (Chief End V) we looked at Bible study and the glory of God. This week we will look at prayer and the glory of God. What are the things that you pray for? Why (with what motive or desire) do you pray for those things? When we look at the things that we pray for, perhaps something about ourselves will come out. We pray for people we like. We pray for the health of the people we like, and even ourselves. We pray for material things that we desire. But do we pray for those things so that God would be glorified? With what motives do we pray for those things? Down deep as our terminal (greatest goal) end in prayer, do we desire things for ourselves?
Jesus taught us how to pray and it is rare to see this in the modern day. The Lord’s Prayer (Mat 6:9-13) is Jesus’ basic outline of how to pray. John 17 is His outline prayer in practice. But notice that we could pray those words and our hearts could be contrary to our words. The Lord’s Prayer is given to us in such a way and in the context that it is given to teach us to pray with a heart for the glory of God and not just words of duty. “Hallowed by Thy name” can be prayed over and over with no true God-centered desire for the glory of God. We can pray for His name to be hallowed (revered and glorified) with nothing but the duty of prayer in our hearts and duty is nothing but an effort to do something in an effort to gain something from God. A duty prayer is a selfish prayer in that it wants to use God for self. A duty prayer is not a prayer that corresponds to God’s purpose in creating human beings. We are to pray in such a way that our hearts desire the manifestation of His glory out of love for Him.
As we think through the issue of prayer, we can see where we fall short of the glory of God which is the standard God created us for. We can see how many of our prayers are simply to get God to do or obtain for us what we want God to do or obtain for us. Prayer has become the Christian method of living at the height of selfishness in trying to manipulate God to do our desires. Prayer has become nothing more than a work and a duty and if you do it in such and such a way with such and such words God will grant you what you want. That is about as opposite of man’s created purpose as can possibly be. Humanity is to love God above self. The very core love of the human heart is to be for God and the display of His glory. But, someone might say, “we are fallen human beings and God is not obligated to put that love in our hearts.” That is exactly right. He is also never obligated to answer our prayers and cannot be put under obligation by anything we do, especially when we have selfish prayers.
In the previous paragraph we saw (implicitly) that God must put love in our hearts in order to pray correctly. If we do not have love for His glory, then that should instruct us as to what we should pray for. If we see other people not loving the glory of God as they should, which is every single person on the planet; we can know what our prayer should be for them. We must seek God in prayer to give us love for Himself and His glory. We must seek God in prayer for what is truly good for others and that is for them to deny self and live for the glory of God. We must desire God’s glory through others and that must be what we should pray for. If we only desire the health and financial prosperity of others, we don’t desire what is best for them and don’t truly love them with a love that flows from God. Essentially, then, prayer must be from a heart that loves God and His glory above all. The heart that does that must come from God on a continual basis. Prayer must be for the glory of God in others which is what they were created for and is also what we were created for. That is prayer according to God’s terminal end. If our prayers are not for the glory of God as their terminal end, we are not praying in accordance with His will.
God Loves... Himself 
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