Don’t Pick a Flower, Boil an Egg, or Pet a Dog Without Worshiping a Glorious God
How Big Is Your God?
I was raised in a Christian home. Yet as I was growing up, my thinking about God was far different from the picture of God found in the Bible. Then my brother Tedd came home from college and began to talk to me about God’s total control over all things.
This was a piece of the doctrine of God I had never heard before. Our conversations flooded me with questions, hurt my pride, and made me angry. During one of our debates, I got so mad that I took off my shoe and threw it at Tedd. A day or so later, he brought me a paperback copy of the Bible and a yellow marker, and said, “This summer read through the Bible and mark every instance of the sovereign rule of God over all things.”
I took the challenge. This summer reading project not only corrected my poor theology, it also changed the trajectory of my life. I was not only moved by the picture of God’s complete rule, but I was also blown away by his immeasurable glory.
Few believers suffer from a view of God that’s too big. Yet many suffer from a picture of God that is sadly too small. We can’t allow ourselves to hold a theology that shrinks God down to a manageable size. Yet it’s easy to do.
Here’s the problem. When you are working to understand any concept or term, you always begin your process of understanding from the vantage point of your own experience. For example, if I use the term father, you will define that term based on your experience of your own father. Your understanding won’t change until I define what I mean by that term.
Yet when it comes to God, no experience in my life is comparable to who and what he is. Our God is incomparable in the purity of his holiness and the expansiveness of his glory. I hope you’ll see—and be blown away by—what God’s word shows us of his brilliant glory.
12 Truths Every Teen Can Trust
Paul David Tripp
Adapted from Paul David Tripp’s book Do You Believe? these brief, approachable readings help teenagers learn about 12 doctrines and reflect on their relevance to the Christian life.
The Glory War
God has no glory rival. There is only one who exists in the universe who is ultimate in glory, ultimate in greatness, ultimate in beauty, and ultimate in perfection. And because God is glorious, there’s one thing you must understand: Life is one big glory war. Here’s how the battle takes shape.
Each of us is hardwired by God for glory. We are attracted to glorious things, whether it’s an exciting drama, an enthralling piece of music, or the best meal ever. God made us this way to drive us to him. We will always be shaped by the pursuit of some kind of glory. So the battle begins with this question: What glory right here, right now, has captured your heart?
Sin makes us all glory thieves. We take credit for what only God could produce. We want to be sovereign and we want to be worshiped. We complain when we don’t get whatever it is that we want. But in living for our own glory, we steal glory that belongs to God.
Only God’s glory can satisfy the glory hunger in our hearts. If you could experience the most glorious situations, locations, relationships, achievements, or possessions in life, your heart still would not be satisfied. Creation doesn’t have the capacity to bring contentment to our hearts. That’s not its purpose. Instead, creation is designed to point us to the glory of the one who can satiate our hunger and give peace and rest to our hearts.
God’s grace alone has the power to win the glory war in our hearts. We all tend to continually revert back to self-glory. So the only hope for us is that the God of glory will rescue us from our glory thievery. In amazing grace, Jesus willingly came on a glory rescue mission. He lived righteously on our behalf, died for our thievery, and rose again, conquering sin and death. Because he did, there is hope that we will finally be free from self-glory and live forever in the light of the satisfying glory of God.
Creation is designed to point us to the glory of the one who can satiate our hunger and give peace and rest to our hearts.
Seeing the Glory of God
The created world is jam-packed with glory. God designed the physical world to reveal his character. All creation together is one big finger pointing to God. This reality spans every period of human history, every location on the globe, and every racial and ethnic group.
You see God’s glory in the sand dunes in Dubai and in the lush green valleys of New Zealand. You see it in the frozen tundra of the polar regions and the dense jungles of the Amazon. You see it in the inexhaustible wings of a hummingbird and the lumbering gait of an elephant. You see his glory in the bright rays of the sun and in the twinkling starry night. You see it in the multitude of faces on the streets of New York and in a pride of lions in the bush of Africa. You hear it in the rhythm of ocean waves and in the whisper of the wind through the trees. You see his glory when water boils and smell it in well-roasted beef. You see it in the passing of the seasons and in the regularity of morning and night. Fish, fowl, and flowers constantly point to him. Your local park, your favorite pet, and the garden out back are all fingers pointing to him. It is a 24/7 glory display for everyone to see, no ticket needed.
There is a calling for all of us in this. Talk with your neighbor about the God behind the roses and the sunset. Tell your friends that every time you go to the park and walk through the woods, you think about the one who created it all. Do everything you can to give spiritually blind people eyes to see, and pray that as they begin to see God, they will seek him.
Humbly thank him for the grace of this daily display. Pray for eyes that are open to his glory and a heart that remembers. Determine that you won’t pick a flower, boil an egg, look out the window, pet the dog, or mash some potatoes without a moment of worship, and then ask for grace to follow through.
This article is adapted from 12 Truths Every Teen Can Trust: Core Beliefs of the Christian Faith That Will Change Your Life by Paul David Tripp.
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