God Loves… Himself

Hence we learn [see quote from Reflections on and Admirations of God 6] how all God’s love may be resolved into His love for and delight in Himself. His love to the creature is only His inclination to glorify Himself and communicate Himself, and His delight is in Himself glorified and in Himself communicated. There is His delight in the act and in the fruit. The act is the exercise of His own perfection, and the fruit is Himself expressed and communicated.      Jonathan Edwards

We can also see that works for salvation can be nothing but a seriously false teaching. In this approach, where all is based on the glory of God, there is nothing that man can do to glorify God in and of himself. Man must be thoroughly humbled and emptied of self in order to be an instrument through which the glory of God will shine forth. When men look to their own works, they are looking to themselves as the source of their strength and righteousness. That is nothing less than seeking the glory of self, but the Scriptures are quite clear that nothing that is truly righteous can come from a man.

If we truly believe that nothing that is righteous can come from man or from the strength of self in man, then this shows us (with a moment of reflection) that a subtle form of works has slipped into biblical Christianity and is deceiving many. People can think that they are escaping a works mentality when they do things for the glory of God, but that can be another way of looking at a law and that can be nothing more than a form of works as well. One can be doing things stating the words of doing them for the glory of God and yet still be doing them from the strength of self. One may even have some intent in doing them to the glory of God and yet still be doing them from the strength of self. Saying the words and even having an intent to do things to the glory of God does not mean that what a human being is doing is actually from the strength and working of God in the human soul. In order to actually do something to the glory of God requires that it is actually God manifesting His glory in and through the human being.

I think that it should be clear that people can be taught that they should do all to the glory of God and that they can then convince themselves that they are doing it for the glory of God when they say the words or tell themselves that what they are doing does in fact glorify God. But that can be more deceptive than other forms of deception because it is closer to the truth. Living to the glory of God and doing any one thing to the glory of God is as impossible to do in the strength of man as it is to be perfect. For God to be glorified through a human soul it must be God Himself working in and through that human soul. Only God can manifest His internal glory to where it is now external in the sense where it is manifested and communicated.

Living to the glory of God is not possible by any human act, but instead it can only happen by the grace of God. Living to the glory of God is not what a human being does, but instead the human being must be transformed by the glory of God and then that glory must manifest itself through the human. Living to the glory of God is not a work of man, but instead it is a work of God in the man. Living to the glory of God is not done just because a person decides to do something that s/he may think honors God, but instead a person should seek the Lord to be an instrument of His glory which only happens by grace. Living to the glory of God is not done by the human for God, but it is God doing it through the human for Himself and His own glory. Human beings are privileged to be used as instruments of His glory and this is only done by sovereign grace and sovereign grace alone.

When a person truly longs to see the glory of God, that person must begin to seek humility for Christ to dwell in him or her more and more. Christ will not dwell in a proud heart and He will not share the glory with another which is precisely what a proud heart will try to do. The person that longs to see the glory of God should then long to be an instrument of His glory which means to seek Him to be humbled and broken as clay in the hands of the Potter. God does not use vessels that are used for other purposes, but instead He uses vessels that He has made to be set apart from all other uses and then for His own purposes. Oh how so many have been deceived into thinking that as long as they use the words “for His glory” or think that what they are doing honors Him that they are living to His glory. But instead a vessel must be prepared to be full of His glory so that He may manifest and communicate His own glory by grace and His will and wisdom.

Hence we learn [see quote from Reflections on and Admirations of God 6] how all God’s love may be resolved into His love for and delight in Himself. His love to the creature is only His inclination to glorify Himself and communicate Himself, and His delight is in Himself glorified and in Himself communicated. There is His delight in the act and in the fruit. The act is the exercise of His own perfection, and the fruit is Himself expressed and communicated.        Jonathan Edwards

The quote from Edwards just above gets at several important points, but one of the main points to consider is what it means for the command to glorify God in all we do. This can be thought of in terms of love or joy. God commands His people to rejoice in Him, but where does that joy come from? If the joy comes from the human as to its origin, then the joy would be something a person gives to God that does not come from Him. If the soul has the ability to delight in God apart from the ability to delight in God that comes from God, then the soul has the ability to obey the commands of God with the power of obedience from itself. But Jesus clearly taught His people that apart from Him they could do nothing (John 15:4-5).

What we can clearly see from the quote above is that Edwards saw that anything that a human being did in the spiritual realm must come from God first. A human being does not have the power to work up spiritual things in his or her own power, but instead spiritual things that please God must come from the work of the Holy Spirit. This is to say that true spiritual fruit that comes through a human being is truly the fruit of the Spirit. When a human being loves another, that is the work of the Holy Spirit and that is the love of God for God being manifested. When a human being has true spiritual joy, that is the work and fruit of the Holy Spirit and that is the joy of God in God being manifested.

What we have, then, is a very beautiful picture. Human beings have no power or ability to glorify God as He commands them since they have no way to work any of the commands in their own power. But what God commands human beings to do, then, is to be instruments of His glory in the world. A person does not glorify God by doing what He commands in his own power of self, but God is only truly glorified when a human being is the instrument by which God manifests Himself. God exists in perfect love and joy and He is glorified in that when a human beings has that love and joy worked in him or her by God and then that love and joy flows from the throne of the living God in the human soul and is poured back out to God and to others. That is when the glory of God is manifested, but most of all it is for God Himself.

In order for this point to be crystal clear, we can think of the glory of God as being the beauty and delightfulness of God in all He is in Himself. A human being cannot be like God unless God works that in the soul of the human being. In the highest sense of the word, a human being cannot glorify God in the slightest (in this sense) since all true glory must come from God Himself. It is only when God shines out of Himself that He can truly be glorified. It is only when God shines out of Himself and communicates Himself to human beings that they can then be used to glorify Him. This is a critical point. The love that glorifies God must come from the love of God for Himself in order for Him to be truly glorified. The joy that glorifies God must come from the joy that God has in Himself in order for Him to be truly glorified.

Another point should be made for more clarity. It is not the fact that I have joy that glorifies God, not even if God is the object (in some sense) of my joy. The God is only glorified or manifested when it is the joy He has in Himself that is manifested. So God is only truly glorified in this sense in and through human beings when His joy is worked in them and then manifested through them. This is so vital if we are to understand Edwards, but more importantly if we are to understand the true nature of spiritual fruit. We cannot work spiritual fruit from self and human nature, but spiritual fruit must come from the Holy Spirit. We cannot glorify God from self and human nature, but this true glory must come from the One who alone is full of all true glory. This shows so clearly that God alone can regenerate a soul and God alone can work Himself in a soul and manifest His glory in and through that soul. Enough of the legalist and the libertine, those who love God and desire His glory should seek Christ Himself who alone is our hope of glory (Col 1:27). Enough of those who think they are saved by grace and yet sanctified by their own work. We are only sanctified to the degree that we die to self and His glory is worked in and through us.

Hence we learn [see quote from Reflections on and Admirations of God 6] how all God’s love may be resolved into His love for and delight in Himself. His love to the creature is only His inclination to glorify Himself and communicate Himself, and His delight is in Himself glorified and in Himself communicated. There is His delight in the act and in the fruit. The act is the exercise of His own perfection, and the fruit is Himself expressed and communicated. Jonathan Edwards

This paragraph brings some of the great truths of God into a focus and displays them in a way that has hardly seen the light of day in modern times. Here is a view of the greatness of the one and only God who is triune and all love is within Himself and for Himself. Here we see how the two Great Commandments are seen in God Himself. It is only in loving Himself (as triune) that God loves His creatures. As such, it is only when a human being (out of the love for Himself that God has poured into the human soul) loves God that a human being can really love another. It is a great truth and therefore a great comfort to realize that God loves His people based on His perfect and eternal love for Himself rather than a love that is based on their behavior. The behavior or moral life of people can truly only flow from a love for God rather than trying to earn His love. It is impossible to earn His love, but instead one should cry out to God for grace that one may have and live in that love.

Zephaniah 3:14-17 gives us a beautiful picture of God. “14 Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! 15 The LORD has taken away His judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; You will fear disaster no more. 16 In that day it will be said to Jerusalem: “Do not be afraid, O Zion; Do not let your hands fall limp. The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” If we look at this from a view that is centered and focused on human beings, we will think that God is responding to what His people has done and is rejoicing over that. But if we think of His people doing what they do because God is working in them to manifest Himself, the picture we get is that God is delighting in Himself and the glory He has expressed in and through His people. The people are blessed in that and so join in His rejoicing. God rejoices in His own glory and His people rejoice in the sight of His glory because they love Him and His glory above all.

Edwards makes a very important distinction when he says, “There is His delight in the act and in the fruit.” The actions of God are the exercises of His perfections which God loves to exercise and manifest. The fruit, that is, the result of what He does is really Himself expressed and communicated. In a very real sense we can also make a distinction between God expressing Himself and communicating Himself as well, but in terms of the people of God bearing fruit, it is more of a helpful way of thinking than it is two things that are distinct from each other. God can express Himself in ways where He has not communicated Himself in the sense where His presence and glory are actually communicated a person.

When we think of the nature of true love, therefore, we can see why it is only a true believer who can truly love (see I John 4:7-8). Only believers are spiritual people which means only a believer has the Holy Spirit. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, which means that only those who have the Holy Spirit and those that the Holy Spirit is working in have true love and truly love. If we trace that back to the source, what we see is that God as triune is always in the act of His perfections in Himself and to His people. The Holy Spirit (who is fully God) expresses love from God to His people and that love is then communicated to them because the Spirit dwells in them and works Himself in them. In this sense communicating love is not just telling people about it, but it is part of the very nature of God that He shares with and works in His people. So when the people of God receive this communication of love from God, they will love others. When a believer truly loves, that is really the manifestation of the very love of God in and through that person. The love that a believer shows others is really the fruit of the of the act of God who is exercising the perfection of love in Himself and then sharing it and communicating it to His people.

When we see true believers loving God and others, it is nothing that they should be applauded for, but it is something that God should be worshipped for. When believers love others in truth, that is the very perfection of God being worked in and through His people and so it is God on display and it is God glorified. So the delight of God in seeing a true believer love is really the delight of God in Himself displayed. A believer should grow to where the believer can delight in the glory of God shining in and through him or her rather than being proud of what s/he has done. There is nothing to boast about in ourselves, but in truth we can do nothing good but what comes through Jesus Christ. He is the vine and we are the branches. All true fruit that we bear comes from Him and all the glory and praise is His.

As He delights in His own goodness, so He delights in the exercise of His goodness, and therefore He delights to make the creature happy, and delights to see him made happy as He delights in exercising goodness or communicating happiness. This is no proper addition to the happiness of God, because it is that which He eternally and unalterably had. The happiness that God experiences when He beholds His own glory shining forth in His image in the creature, and when He beholds the creature made happy from the exercise of His goodness, does not increase, because those and all things are from eternity equally present with God. This delight in God cannot properly be said to be received from the creature because it consists only in a delight in giving to the creature. Neither will it hence follow that God is dependent on the creature for any of His joy, because it is His own act only that this delight is dependent on, and the creature is absolutely dependent on God for that excellency and happiness that God delights in. God cannot be said to be more happy because of the creature because He is infinitely happy in Himself. He is not dependent on the creature for anything, nor has He received any addition from the creature.     Jonathan Edwards

It is a delightful thing for the creature to think of him or herself as being totally dependent on God for all things, even joy. While some try to represent reality as if God looks to us to come up with joy or to respond with joy in our own strength, that is really nothing but false theology. God Himself is the origin and spring of all true joy and all true joy must come from Him and Him alone. For a creature to have true joy is for a creature to have that in him or her from God. That true joy is really the joy God has in Himself and is a work of the grace of God in the soul in giving that creature a joy and delight in Himself. God, as an infinite and perfect being, cannot obtain joy from any other source and is full of joy in Himself. He is worthy to be adored, admired, and worshiped for who He is as a God of infinite joy in Himself.

Humanity seeks after happiness and joy in all things that are done, but in doing what they do apart from God they show that they are obtaining joy in themselves and for themselves based on themselves. People seek joy and happiness in sin, yet sin is what brings misery. People will not seek God as their joy, which is a different thing than seeking God for joy, but instead they are like Adam and Eve who want to determine what is good for themselves. While it is true that seeking joy in sin will bring a certain amount of good feelings, those things are transient pleasures of this life. But those transient pleasures are so deceptive and seem to hold out promises of more joy. That deception, however, is really from pride and self. The sinful self longs for joy and so the things of the world gives it some taste of good feeling, but those good feelings are from self and self can never be the source of true joy. So self looks and looks at the world and tries to find joy, but since it cannot obtain true joy from them it keeps searching and has to have more and more to have any amount of good feeling. The heart being full of pride does not want to admit that it cannot obtain true joy in its sown way. So those without the Spirit of joy continue in their vain search for joy in the pursuit of self.

But God does not search for joy, but instead He exists in perfect and infinite joy. As such, for a human being to have true joy that human being must have Christ obtain joy for him or her and for the Spirit of Christ who is the Spirit of joy dwell in that soul. The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy (and so on). When the Spirit of Christ who alone can work joy in the soul actually works that joy in the soul, that soul has nothing more and nothing less than the very joy God that has in Himself in the soul. In other words, God shares His joy with that soul and so the joy has a true joy and delight in God Himself. If God’s perfect and infinite joy is in Himself, then He can give no greater joy than giving a soul a true joy in Himself.

The soul that has the joy and delight of God in the soul is a soul that God works in with and by His own joy. So when God beholds the soul that He dwells in and gives His joy, that is really the living God delighting in Himself. The creature, then, which is the image of God, can give nothing to God, but is simply a means by which God delights in Himself and manifests His own glory to Himself. The creature must learn that he cannot and must not try to reflect self back to God, but in striving to have more of God in the soul the creature should be a reflection of God back to Himself. In this we can see that the creature should have a joy and delight in the joy and delight of God. How utterly glorious it is for a human being to be humbled and broken from self and pride and to stop seeking to find joy in self, but instead to find joy and delight in God’s sharing of His own joy and delight in Himself. That is true grace found only in Christ and worked in human beings by the Spirit.

God stands in no need of creatures, and is not profited by them. Neither can His happiness be said to be added to by the creature; yet God has a real and proper delight in the excellency and happiness of His creatures. He has a real delight in the excellency and loveliness of the creature in His own image in the creature, as that is a manifestation, an expression, and shining forth of His own loveliness. God has a real delight in His own loveliness, and He also has a real delight in the shining forth and glorifying of it. As it is a fit and decent thing that God’s glory should shine forth, so God delights in its shining forth. So God has a real delight in the spiritual loveliness of the saints, which delight is not a delight distinct from what He has in Himself, but is to be resolved into the delight He has in Himself. For He delights in His image in the creature as He delights in His own being glorified, or as He delights in it that His own glory shines forth. And so He has real, proper delight in the happiness of His creatures, which also is not distinct from the delight He has in Himself, for it is to be resolved into the delight that He has in His own goodness.
                                                                                                                                                             Jonathan Edwards

Human beings spend too little time reflecting and admiring the glory and wonders of God and too much time reflecting on themselves. Human beings need to spend more time in the mirror of the Scriptures with meditation and prayer than primping themselves in front of the mirrors at home. When a human being is in front of the mirror at home, that usually means that the human is not in front of the mirror of the Word. The mirror at home reflects what we look like and we spend a lot of time trying to improve what we look like in order to obtain praise of others or to think well of ourselves. However, spending time in front of the mirror of the Word will reflect things to us of our ugly our soul is apart from Christ.

It is only when human beings begin to be more concerned (even far more) with how their soul appears to God than how they appear to themselves or others in the physical realm that they can begin to understand that they are to be mirrors (in a sense) of the glory of God to Himself. Indeed Christ is the perfect image of the Father and the shining forth of His glory, but all human beings were created in His image and they are to shine forth His glory rather than try to obtain glory for themselves. When God looks at a human being, He looks primarily at their soul because that is what either reflects Him or it reflects the devil. In a very real sense sanctification is the process by which a human being grows in grace and becomes a more accurate mirror of God to behold His own glory by. If a human being loves God, then that human being will desire to be one that God can behold and see His own glory.

Human beings must begin to see their own frailty and utter nothingness in one and very important sense. They can do nothing for God and He has no need of them at all. What can they do to make God look good? Surely just asking the question shows the absurdity of the thought. Yes, it is true, God delights in the creature but it is His own glory that He delights in. The creature cannot do anything in one sense to make God look good to Himself, so the creature must seek to have more of Christ so that when the Father beholds the creature what He really sees is Christ Himself. This line of thinking should show human beings how utterly worthless their filthy rags of righteousness are and how much they need Christ who alone can shine forth the glory of God back to Himself. But instead humans wonder around on earth thinking that they can do something themselves to glorify God and be righteous enough for Him to count them righteous.

The only thing that a human being can really do is to seek grace in order to be an empty vessel which God can fill with His glory with Christ and then behold Himself shining forth in Christ. This is one reason why self-righteousness is so repugnant to God. Self-righteousness is not possible and is not wanted to God. It is only His own glory in the face of Christ that He desires to behold in us. For God to have a proper delight, He can only delight in Himself. The human being must keep that in mind in all aspects of life. When a human being meditates on and longs for the true glory of God to shine forth from him or her, that is precisely what God desires. The human should desire to glorify God that God may be pleased rather than try to do something to glorify God so that the human can earn something before God. What a great and glorious God that would shine forth His glory in and through human beings and delight in Himself on display in them. How utterly beautiful and how ravishing it is to the soul that loves the Father through the Son and beholds the glory God in and through the Son as the Son dwells in the souls of men.

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!

God’s holiness is His having a due, meet, and proper regard to everything, and therefore consists mainly and preeminently in His infinite regard or love for Himself. He is infinitely the greatest and most excellent being, and therefore a meet and proper regard for Himself is infinitely greater than for all other beings. Now as He is, as it were, the sum of all being, and all other positive existence is but a communication from Him, hence it will follow that a proper regard for Himself is the sum of His regard.                        Jonathan Edwards

The beauty and glorious nature of God is lost in the thinking of so many today, but the Scripture and then Edwards thought of God in a different way. Many seem to judge God by fallen man rather than realize and bow before the living God by whom no one and no standard other than Himself. God is holy when God is God and does all for the glory of His own name. God is holy when He does all out of love for Himself and His own glory. God is holy when He regards Himself in all things and does all things out of that regard for Himself. What else should God have regard to? What else should He love? He is the supreme standard of for all things and no one and nothing else should be that standard.

All human beings are from Him and there is no other way to obtain anything that is truly positive but from God. This is in line with the two Greatest Commandments. All are commanded to love God with all of the heart, mind, soul, and strength. However, all are commanded to love their neighbor as themselves. The only way to look at that is to know that we cannot love any other unless we love God first, but not only that we cannot truly love them if we don’t love them out of love for Him. As I John 4:7-8 teaches, no one loves but those who are born of God and know God. God is the only source and origin of love and so for any human to love that human must receive that love from God.

When a believer loves another believer, what we see is the love of God that He has for Himself, which is His holiness. God exists in perfect love within the Trinity and all true love must come from Him by grace and be communicated in accordance with His perfect holiness. God is so beautiful in and of Himself and in love for Himself that this is an essential aspect of His holiness. While there are other aspects to His holiness, there can be nothing more beautiful and holy than God being just like Himself and living in perfect love for Himself.

Isaiah 6:3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”

Isaiah 42:8 “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.

Isaiah 48:11 “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.

Psalm 27:4 One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.

Psalm 96:6 Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

Why did God create human beings? Many people know, at least in a general way, that all human beings were created for the glory of God. However, that is a general answer and without making sure the content of that statement is correct it can be a meaningless answer. Perhaps a different question may get to the issue in a different way. Why did God make the human mind? He made it so that human beings could think upon Him, treasure Him, and delight their souls with thoughts of Him. He made the human mind that it could think about God, but also think about Him through the medium of the things He has created. He has created the human mind that it may think His thoughts after Him. He created the human mind that He may share with human beings the thoughts He has of the Son and the thoughts the Son as of the Father.

Why did God give human beings affections? He gave them affections that they may have feelings of delight in their meditations of Him and His glory. He gave them affections that they could have (so to speak) a taste of Him and His glory. He gave them affections that they may have His joy in them and that they may in some way share in His delight in Himself. He gave them affections that they may share in the joy in Him that He works in them by His Spirit. In other words, God created the human affections for His glory and as a way to manifest His glory. The delight of the human soul in God can only come from God and as such is the delight of God in Himself and His glory being manifested.

Why did God give each human being a will? As part of His image human beings are able to choose what they think highly of and what they delight in. He gave them a will so that they would not be robots or mere animals. He gave them a will so that they could choose Him rather than sin. He gave them a will so that they could be like Him in choosing Himself and His glory above all things at all times.

Human beings are most like God when they love God with all (or at least some) of their hearts, minds, souls, and strength. The more a person loves God with all of his or her being the more that person is like God. In this way human beings manifest the glory of God. It is in when human beings are focused on God with all of their being (each part and yet the whole) that they can know something of what God is like because God is manifesting Himself to them and through them. It is only when people are holy that they can see something of God. This is true in at least two ways. One, God only reveals Himself to those who are pursuing holiness as that is the only way to pursue God. Two, when people are holy and seeking God that is actually God manifesting Himself through them. In this they behold Him and His glory.

Jesus said that when one believer does something for another believer they are actually doing it to Him. In another sense, and a very real sense, when one believer does something for another believer, it is Christ working through one believer to love Christ. In this the glory of God is displayed and manifested through His people and even their very simple acts of love. True love has no source and origin but from God, which is why a person has to born of God and know God in order to love (I John 4:7-8). This also explains why Jesus said that “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

It is such a way of glory in how God manifests Himself through His redeemed people that one would think that a church would be a place where God would be sought. Indeed people are looking for God in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. People think that the institutional church is where God is, but in fact God is where those who are truly born of God are. The Lord Jesus Christ was the very tabernacle of the glory of God while He walked on this planet, but now the Church is the tabernacle of the glory of God because Christ dwells on the throne of the hearts of His people. Where the true people of God are, there God is. The true Church, which is the body of Christ, is where Christ is. The true believer, who has been born from above and indwelt by the Spirit of the living God, that is where Christ is. How glorious God is that He works through weak, helpless, and even sinful creatures. God and His glory is on display for those who have eyes to see, though it is usually with the weak and those with great trials. Truly His ways are not our ways.

The fact that God existed before there was a beginning is something that should cause the mind to get lost in wonder and admiration. Human beings seem to make themselves, their feelings, and their minds the standard of all things, but that is nothing more than pride and the result of the Fall. God is the standard of all things because He made all things, upholds all things, and He made all things to manifest His own glory. Human beings tend to think of themselves and reflect on themselves and what they have done rather than God. Human beings tend to admire themselves rather than God. We tend to think of God as the One who is there to help us attain all we want and desire. In doing this, however, there is great, great sin. God alone is the only One worthy to admire Himself and reflect on His own glory. When human beings do that, they are simply showing that they are either of their father the devil or that they have some remnants of their former father the devil in them.

If the previous paragraph is true, then it is a horrible sin for human beings to make themselves their own standard. It is a horrible sin for human beings to admire themselves and think of God as just there to help us get what we want. It shows that the Fall indeed happened and that we are nothing more or less than those who seek self and want to use all others (including God) as ways to help self get what self wants. The self will even use religion and the things of God to get honor and attention of others, though it can also use religion as a means to admire self. The self is so deceitful that it can be much in the study of God and yet only do that for the purposes of self. The purpose and goal of the soul, and of this series, is to simply reflect on and admire the living God rather than self.

In order to truly admire God as God and for the sake of God, the soul must die to self and be dying to self. Oh how deceptive the soul is and how deceptive pride and self-exaltation can be. But despite how the soul can deceive itself in the meditations on God, the soul must look to God in order to see self as it really is and to bow humbly before the living God as it sees more of who He is. So all meditation and reflection on God will include a sight of self and will also include some spiritual battle. The knowledge of God can be as all other knowledge which can lead to pride, which is why we so need to be warned against pride in all we do. It cannot be said too strongly that the study of God is dangerous in the sense that we can be given over to the most dangerous form of pride which is religious pride. However, we must grow in the knowledge of God and of our Lord Jesus in order to be converted and in order to grow spiritually. But we must be careful to seek and to grow in humility in order that the knowledge of God will come to us clothed in grace.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will [pleasure] they existed, and were created.”

Colossians 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him.

We can read Genesis 1:1 and blow right on by it, but we must not do that. There was One who existed before the beginning and He was and is the eternal God. He was the primary cause of all things that happened in the beginning. He was the architect and the builder of the universe as a whole and of planet earth in particular. He created all things with a perfect wisdom and design. As the Creator and Designer of all things, He made them as pleased and in order to manifest His own glory. He is displayed in all things and it is His intent that all things should put Him on display.

All of creation has a purpose and part of that purpose is that it is to teach us about God and then to admire and live to the glory of God. Psalm 19 tells us that nature declares the glory of God and that means that it declares the glory of God to human beings (as well as to spiritual beings). Instead of falling into the trap of naturalism where we begin to admire the results of a natural evolution (so to speak) and a pattern of mindless causation (if there can be such a thing), we are to behold the living God in all of nature. From what can only be seen through the microscope to what can be seen through the telescope, all has been created for Christ and therefore the glory of God.