1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Matthew 22:37 And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
“As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4).
God does not seek His own glory because it makes Him happy, to be honored and highly thought of, but because He loves to see Himself, His own excellencies and glories appearing in His works. He loves to see Himself communicated and it was His intention to communicate Himself that was a prime motive of His creating the world. His own glory was the ultimate motive. He Himself was His end, that is, Himself communicated. The very phrase “the glory” seems naturally to signify this. Glory is a shining forth, an effulgence. So the glory of God is the shining forth or effulgence of His perfections, as effulgence is the communication of light. For this reason, that brightness whereby God was wont to manifest Himself in the wilderness, and in the tabernacle and temple, was called God’s glory. As the brightness of the sun, moon, and stars is called their glory, so the glory of God is the shining forth of His perfections. The world was created that they [His perfections] might shine forth, that is, that they [His perfections] might be communicated. Jonathan Edwards
The pictures and the theology of Edwards in the paragraph above and how it agrees with the Scriptures gives us a breathtaking sight of the motives of God in creation and all things. It should remove from our minds any residual thoughts or ideas of legalism and moralism. God created all things for His own glory and has no need of our morals and our religion (as such). True Christianity flows from the throne of the living God and if we are to have anything of God in our souls it must be received from Him and received by grace alone. We have to have God Himself turn our hearts and our heads from self and pride and realize that He is the Creator of all things and that includes ourselves.
It is simply an exquisite thought that God’s love is primarily for Himself and He does all for His own glory. This is meat and rest for the soul. We do not have to give ourselves to work and always worry if we are doing it out of the right motive, but instead it is as we seek the Lord to communicate Himself to us and it is from Him that we receive the spiritual energy and strength to do what His wisdom dictates to us. Instead of being given to works outwardly and openly, many are deceived and say that we are to work and do it for His glory. However, that can be nothing but another system of works. Christ is our life and what we do should be and is supposed to be from life in the soul and that life expressed through the soul.
In order to get at the thought of Edwards (and more importantly, the Bible) we must not get trapped into thinking that what he wrote is a system of works and even a system of works that is harder because it involves another layer to it. It is not based on a legal system, it is based on a system of life that flows from the throne of God and is how God glorifies Himself in and through human beings. We are not to set out a system on how to glorify God as such, but instead we are to understand how God does this and seek Him to do this by grace. Until we understand that we are to share in the life of God and His love for Himself as triune and how He glorifies Himself and loves to behold His glory in and through us, we will not really understand true sanctification.
Our legalistic hearts, which come from our being born dead in sins and trespasses, want to make a legal system of eating and drinking and whatever we do being to the glory of God. However, this cannot be dragged down into law, but instead this is the life of the soul that God dwells in. The heart that loves God and seeks God for the grace of love in the soul that it may love Him will do what it does for His glory and seek Him for more that it may glorify Him more and more. The law can never give power to keep the law, but love for God comes from God and He works that strength and power in the souls that love Him. There is power in life and love, but there is no power in the law but the power of condemnation and death.
God Loves... Himself 
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