God’s glory is another subject we can adopt an intellectual position on and have affections rise in our heart while we are focused on ourselves. This is something that must be of the heart and flow from our love for God which comes from God’s love for Himself. Evangelism that is moved by the eternal welfare of humans rather than the love of God is idolatry. We must not be more concerned about another human than the glory of God. If so, then we don’t have true love for the other human because what is best for them is to be turned from their self-love to a love for God. If we love the eternal welfare (in a modern sense) of a human being more than the glory of God we will change the message of the Gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ to one that has Christ as focused on the sinner as the sinner is focused on the sinner. Instead of that the sinner must be as focused on the glory of God in the face of Christ as Christ did while on earth and does now as He is in the bosom of the Father. The evangelism that is practiced with the sinner as the focus makes God the Father, God the Son, the one being evangelized, and the one doing the evangelism out to be lovers of human beings more than lovers of God and His glory.
Evangelism must be done out of a heart of love for God if we have the love of God in our hearts. The love of God in the heart is something far different than a human oriented self-love for sinners. In reality the human oriented self-love is not true love at all. We can have a false love in our heart while we have a correct creed in our brain. Soli Deo Gloria is not just a Latin phrase dreamed up by the fevered brain of Martin Luther; it is another way to express the Great Commandment and the Great Commission as well. This is a biblical phrase that must be at the heart of all we do in that it must be in our hearts and flow from all we do. The reason that true believers are to function and operate by Soli Deo Gloria is because that is the reason that God functions and operates. We cannot know that God has set His love on a human being if that human being does not love God. When God sets His love on a soul, that person will love Him because God is at work in that soul sharing His love for Himself with that person. God can give human beings great riches and material things and those things turn out to be curses to those people. But to those He sets His love on He gives them what is best and that is Himself. When God gives a person Himself, He is sharing His love for Himself with that person and now that person will love Him.
It is impossible for God to set His love on people without giving Himself and therefore a love for Himself. It is also impossible for a human being to love another human apart from a desire for the other human to have the love of God. The love of God in our soul is not seen by being nice and doing good things, it is by looking to the soul of other people and out of love for God desire that other people would have God. If our evangelism is telling people that God loves them and that they need to make a decision based on that, we have done nothing but what may damn that person. Virtually every person in his own self-love already believes that God loves him. What they don’t know and understand is that the wrath of God is upon them and that they hate God and love themselves. They must repent of their enmity toward God expressed in their self-love so that the love of God may be in them. They must know that the Greatest Commandment is the true standard and that they have no power or ability to keep that commandment apart from the love of God being in their soul. True love will deal with souls like that rather than tell them things in an effort to get people to pray a prayer. Sinners must have a new heart in order to have the love of God in their souls and they must know that is something totally beyond their own power and ability.
In evangelism as well as in true conversion Soli Deo Gloria is far more than just a phrase, it is a necessary truth to all that goes on. It is perhaps the statement about God that defines and sets out God as well as any other. He is a God that loves Himself in the Trinity and all true love flows from the love He has for Himself. This is a truth that must be known in the depths of our being and not just in our brains. We can have so many things locked in our heads and yet not know the reality of them deep in our souls. We may have every confession and creed memorized and yet be lost and on our way to hell. We may know theology better than any human being ever knew it and still be on our way to hell. The Devil knows theology far better than any human, yet he will spend eternity in hell. The Devil is far smarter than any human, yet he is going to hell. The Devil is the greatest theologian and the greatest exegete of Scripture in his own way, yet he is on his way to hell. The Devil believes that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus is the only Savior, yet he is on his way to hell for eternity. The Devil may do great outward good for others, but he is on the way to hell. He lacks the love of God in his soul. No matter what else we do or what else we are, without the love of God in our hearts we are headed to eternal torment. There may be many Reformed people in the world today who are full of knowledge, external morality, have “perfect” families, and many good works who are on the way to hell. They don’t have true love in their hearts and so settle for externals.
God Loves... Himself 
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