The Chief End of Everything and Everyone
Why the best things in life can never be the point, but are instead pointers to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.
In the 17th century, the Westminster Divines summarized the entire purpose of human existence with a profound statement:
"Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."
These 12 words summarize every worthwhile human hope, dream, and ambition. Every bit of life, work, and play is given for God’s sake. And when God receives his glory, a blessed byproduct is that we receive satisfaction and joy.
To glorify God is to ascribe great weight to Him (Hebrew, "kavod"), to take Him seriously, and to elevate Him as life’s supreme priority. The opposite of this would be to treat Him lightly, or to diminish His significance.
Glorifying and enjoying God touches three key areas for us: mental, emotional, and volitional.
Mentally: God is Glorified When We Experience Him as Supreme
No person, place, idea, or thing can compare to God in His excellence (Exodus 20:3; Matthew 22:37-38). He is the measure of all things—the best and greatest of all beings. He stands above all other gods (1 Chronicles 16:25) and is the Source and Creator of everything (Psalm 104:24). Any wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and faithfulness that we possess is borrowed treasure. It all derives from Him.
God’s own supremacy is unparalleled. Compared to an accurate vision of God, the most beautiful sunset appears dull, the strongest athlete seems weak, and the wisest sage looks ignorant. Nothing and no one are entitled to the respect, attention, and honor that God is. He is the supreme and unrivaled measure of all beauty, excellence, and worth. Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun, all of our own positive qualities are a reflection of God, who is the Source of all good.
Fleming Rutledge writes, "The idea that we have to make ourselves worthy to stand in the presence of God is the very essence of sin." Recognizing God's supremacy means acknowledging that everything good in life is a gift given by Him.
Emotionally: God is Glorified When We Find Our Deepest Joy in Him
John Piper rightly says that God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him. Glorifying and enjoying Him includes reserving our deepest affection for Him, versus for the things we receive from Him.
When good things happen, it is like appetizers that whet the soul’s appetite for the ultimate feast that is God Himself. "This is my body, take and eat. This is my blood, take and drink," our Lord says to us (Matthew 26:26-30). Finding satisfaction in God is compared to delighting ourselves "in the richest of foods" (Psalm 63:5).
When we are awake to who God is and what he is like, the best food reminds us that God is our supreme nourishment. The best love reminds us that God is the supreme lover. The greatest victory reminds us that God is the conquering King. And the finest accomplishment reminds us that God does all things with perfection. When bad things happen, our disappointment fuels our longing for God, whose presence and love fill the voids left by our failures and weaknesses (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). He pledges to redeem the pain of our losses once and for all (Revelation 21:1-5).
Glorifying God means finding joy in His presence (1 Chronicles 16:27), in His creation (Psalm 19:1; 104:34), in His promises (Romans 8:18-25), and ultimately in the sheer beauty of who He is (Psalm 27:4). We enjoy God when we are captivated by His beauty. To find God beautiful is to find satisfaction in Him alone, not merely in what He can give us or how we can use Him for some other end.
He is our Lord, not our personal assistant.
As Saint Augustine prayed, "You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
John Piper also writes about our deep hunger for the glory and enjoyment of God:
"We are starved for the glory of God, not self. No one goes to the Grand Canyon to increase self-esteem. We go because there is greater healing for the soul in beholding splendor than in beholding self… We were made to know and treasure the glory of God above all things; and when we trade that treasure for images, everything is disordered. The sun of God’s glory was made to shine at the center of the solar system of our soul. When it does, all the planets of our life are held in their proper orbit. But when the sun is displaced, everything flies apart. The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attracting place at the center."
When we get caught up in the beauty and grandeur of the ocean, mountains, a beautiful face, or a brilliant painting, or when we listen to amazing music, we are not looking to achieve some other goal. Instead, we see and savor the thing for its own sake. The sights and sounds of beauty are fulfilling in themselves. This is also and especially what God is like.
Volitionally: God is Glorified When We Give Our Whole Selves to Him
To glorify God is to recognize and honor His centrality and priority in our lives (Exodus 20:4-6). Glorifying God means making Him the “chief end” for all our decisions and priorities. It means making Him the non-negotiable around which all our decisions are made, goals are established, and ambitions are centered. It means trusting Him above all else and obeying Him with resolve and with joy (John 14:21). It means measuring everything in our lives by whether it enhances or detracts from yielding to Him. It means surrendering all of life—relationships, work, play, rest—to his love and Lordship.
Eugene Peterson observes:
"We live in a culture that has cultivated the idea that the good life is a life of being largely left alone with whatever makes me happy. The Christian life counters that, insisting that the good life is a life lived in response to God's commands, immersed in His love, and directed toward His purposes."
We will always give our lives effortlessly to the people, places, and things we glorify. We will worship and serve what we believe brings our lives the most meaning. Look at your checkbook and schedule, and note where spending money and time comes most naturally. These are likely the things that are most central to your life and heart. When God and the priorities of God become our glory and joy, things like imagination and money and time tend to follow.
Glorifying God means seeking Him not to use Him, but to enjoy Him. It means loving and wanting him for his own sake, making us like the Puritan pauper who, possessing only a piece of bread and glass of water, cried out:
“What?! All of this and Jesus Christ too?!”
To have Christ and know it is to have all that we will ever need.
Hearts that glorify God seek Him out mainly to get Him, versus some ulterior thing. This happens when the Holy Spirit gives us a sense of God’s beauty—when thinking about who He is and what He has done becomes pleasing to our minds, motivating to our wills, and satisfying to our hearts. Rather than making God a means to another end, other things become means to the end of glorifying and enjoying God. We don’t obey God mainly to get health, peace, comfort, or success but to give Him pleasure and honor. Instead, health, peace, comfort, and success are all—because they are gifts—reasons to love and obey God all the more.
“We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
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Thank you, it has blessed my heart to read!
I see much fiction in what was written by the 'divine' authors at Westminster. But being satisfied in God alone they got right. The last of the 5 temptations common to humanity in 1 Cor. 10 is 'murmuring' or grumbling.