You really don’t have to search very far in the Bible to find out that God is very concerned with His glory. He says it over and over again throughout the good book. The theme is inescapable, God is the “King of Glory.”

As I thought about this, I found myself at this thought - “God must have a huge ego problem.” I mean, c'mon. I'm human. That's what my brain thinks when I read some of this stuff in the Bible. Isn’t that what we’d say about any other person we encountered who constantly talked about their glory and how awesome they are? You know I’m right! What would you think of a friend who said stuff like “I am Tom and beside me there is none other,” or “I am a jealous Tom,” or “Thou shalt have no other Toms before me,”? Its safe to assume that friendship wouldn't last too long, right? Right!

I’m glad the scriptures reveal God isn’t at all self-obsessed. He doesn’t have an ego problem. It does look like it when we parse scriptures down to Biblical sound bites, but when we look at the whole Bible, we find a very subtle indicator of God’s genius. We find that God is so serious about getting all of the glory because He knows humankind cannot handle glory for himself.

I wasn’t the best history student when I was at college, but I do know this much: we don’t have to look very far into history to see what mankind does when he gets glory for himself. First and foremost, we recognize that mankind is never ever satisfied with glory he gets. In fact, the more he gets, the most desperate he becomes to get more. Glory in man’s hands is almost always an addiction that drives him to do insanely destructive things. He kills, he steals, we destroys - he does the work of the Devil - to keep himself on top! When we taste glory for ourselves, we’ll stop at nothing to keep getting it.

God’s genius plan is that we give glory to Him! He doesn’t need us to do this. He’s infinitely glorious already. In fact, all glory that man can ever possibly get is already God’s property anyway - just like everything else in the earth (See Psalm 24:1 ). God’s designed things so that He gets glory and we get satisfaction.

When we give (the better word is return,) glory to God, we look to Him and are fulfilled. We don’t get self absorbed, or trapped in an addiction to self-gratification. We look away from ourselves to the source of all glory. We look away from ourselves to the source of our strength, Who enables us to do whatever it is we do. When we look away from ourselves and at Him glory becomes that much more glorious! In our hands glory is just a trifle. In His hands our little contributions of glory become awesome and we are supremely satisfied!

This is some good stuff, here! Learning to just relish the glory of God is amazing and rewarding beyond words. It turns even the most mundane, small and tedious actions into a deposit into God’s bank of glory! It changes everything! This is why we are instructed:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. - 1 Corinthians 10:31

Whether it’s going for a run in the morning, or taking out the trash or washing the car, when we learn to try to make every action a deposit into God’s bank of glory, every little task becomes something potentially spectacular - something to be relished and enjoyed. In this process, God’s glory becomes the source of our joy!

As we set out into this week, let’s purpose together to keep a keen focus on the glory of God. In even the tiniest little things we do let’s look for opportunities to make deposits in His glory bank. At the end of the day, we can look to Him and say - “Look what you enabled me to do today, God! Look how you lifted my head!” I promise, if we get good at doing this, everyday can be breathtaking. Everyday can be the kind of day where we are pumped and excited to go for the glory and give it all back to God!

Here are some questions to help keep us locked on our goal for this week:

How do I think about giving God glory? Is it just a church thing? Is it just about big triumphant moments? Do I think about giving Him glory in the small things I do?

When I do things to gratify myself or make myself “look good,” am I ever really satisfied with it?

Do I look to God’s glory with any regularity? Do I acknowledge Him as the source of all my resources and abilities?

How would I change the things I hate doing if I started thinking of them as actions for God’s glory?