Reflections on and Admirations of God 4

It appears plain enough that an omnipotent and omniscient being can have no desire of having us seek His own ends because He can as easily bring about all His ends without us—and this appears of every and all objects. (Jonathan Edwards)

Reflection on the thought just above leads to more thought, but also, and most certainly, great admiration. God has all power and all knowledge and so cannot depend in the slightest on human beings (or anything else) to carry out His purposes for Him. God does not command His people to glorify Him as the great end of their being and in all they are to do because He is needy in any way, but because it is to be like Him and is how a human being is to direct his or her loves, desires, and lives. It is also true that in the most real of all senses a human being cannot glorify God in his or her own strength, but God must glorify Himself through a human being.

Human beings are so focused on themselves and what they do that they think that they can do something for God, though indeed they cannot. What is it that a human being can do (other than sin) that God cannot do for Himself? The opposite of that is reality; however, the real issue is that human beings depend on God for life, breath, and all things. When human beings depend on God for all that they have and do, even their every breath, what can they do for God? The true and living God has no need of human beings, but He uses them for His own pleasure and glory and allows them to be worked in and through to obtain His own ends.

Since the above statement is true, there is absolutely and utterly no room for self-righteousness in the believer. There is no room for pride in the slightest. There is nothing we have that we have not received, and there is nothing good we have done that has not first come from God, though Christ, and by the power of the Spirit. Every good work that a believer is given the wisdom and power to do by the life of Christ in him or her should lead the believer to great admiration of the living God rather than pride or self-righteousness. That God would use vile and sinful beings to carry out His ends in creation should lead us to worship and adoration of Him rather than self. It should also lead us to flee from the love and service of self and strive and seek to be clay in the Potter’s hands. Oh for more lowliness and more humility!

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