Happy Friday - Quote Time!

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." ~John Piper

I was reading through Let the Nations Be Glad this past week. I've never made it all the way through but I am determined to finish it - someday. Every time I am amazed by that quote. In the book Piper explains that man's ultimate goal should be God's glory and that this is also God's goal. When he first says that I think every reader's hair stands on end. It makes God sound selfish. However, Piper explains that if God had any other goal, he would be untrue to the Truth which is that God is above all and deserves the supreme glory of every creature in HEAVEN and on earth. Therefore, the chief end of God is to glorify himself just as that is the chief end of man - to give God glory.

And I still think I had a hard time with that - even though I understood it. Then I got to the quote above. "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." So, now it makes his glory a relationship. It makes worship so much easier to get into and give to the Lord because I know that He wants me to be satisfied in worship. He wants our worship. He wants to be glorified and He is most glorified when we are satisfied with giving Him worship. He'll do anything to get us there. That's why he woes us to Him. That's why He lavishes His love upon us. Not because we deserve it but because He deserves the praise and the honor and the glory.

We had prayer time at my house this past Sunday night and I found all of this to be true. What's amazing about the Lord is that when you seek to give him praise and when you seek to worship him, coming before him without your own agenda - what He gives back to you is 10 times more than we could ever lavish upon him.

"God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." That quote also teaches me that it doesn't have to be hard - this relationship. It's not about how you're supposed to read your Bible (which I think most of us have been confused about at one point in time or another) or how long you pray or even how you pray just as long as you're giving him glory (usually that comes through reading the Bible and praying though as he teaches you how to do it). Perhaps all of this is elementary and everyone else has gotten it but this lesson I just keep returning to over and over again. I don't think I ever want to get past how good he is and has been and will be - no matter the circumstances I am in. I want the chief end of me to be to give him glory and I absolutely love the fact that my God, my Father, the Creator of Heaven and Earth wants me to be satisfied in him - that's more than I would've ever known to ask for.