Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Redeeming "the glory of God"

Phrases like this carry alot of weight. In my evangelical circles these days this particular phrase (a biblical one, I know; e.g. 1 Cor 10:31) is thrown around quite often. It's promoted as motivation for living and serving. Sometimes is it explained in a way that is helpful to me, other times not. Usually it implies this ethereal other-worldly source of motivation that only the people who have it together can get their hands on. People (normal people, like me) need to think through how our everyday, mundane humanity fits in with this phrase (and I'm convinced that it does, since Scripture teaches it).

Current day Pharisees emblazon their swords and shields with this phrase, often using it to keep people in line. No wonder, then, that some have trouble with it. It can became freighted with negative emotion; emotion that results from spiritual abuse and dysfunction in God's family.

I wish "do all things for the glory of God" were a desirable thing for me. It sounds like more rules, more disappointment, another club that I cannot be a part of because I'm too jacked up.

I want to hear about grace and how it makes us glorious for God, where "doing all for the glory of God" is a clear result of the amazing "grace of God." Instead, it is the "people of God" doing the "works of God."

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