“Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.” Isaiah 26:8
I am sure it brings great joy to the Father to hear his saints pray in this way. The desire of our hearts should always be to glorify God, to make his name great. Why is that? Because God’s deepest desire, his greatest passion, is to be glorified.
1 Timothy 1:15-16 says, “Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”
The more I study the character and attributes of God the more I realize how great a gift salvation truly is. In Romans 3 Paul talks about how completely and utterly depraved we are as human beings. He points out “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”( Romans 3:10-12). In light of who God is there is absolutely nothing that we can do to merit salvation for our souls. As Paul says Christ came to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY SINFUL!
Notice that He did not save sinners so that they may be magnified but so that God could be magnified. It says Christ came so that He may display God’s patience.
The Cross was all for God’s glory not our own. I recently heard a quote by John Piper that honestly left me speechless. He asked, “Do you love the Cross because it makes much of you? Or do you love it because it enables you to enjoy an eternity of making much of God?”
Wow let’s just sit on that for minute here. “The foundation of [my] salvation [and yours] is God’s love for his own glory” (John Piper). Christ died to display the greatness of our God. He loves his glory so much that he was willing to suffer in order that we may see how completely utterly depraved we are and how wonderful his mercy is. When I realized how undeserving I was of salvation it made the cross that much sweeter. Romans 5:8 says “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This causes me to think as the Psalmnist did: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4).
This should lead us to praise and worship the Lord not as an obligation because we are a Christian, but as a great honor and privilege. How amazing it is that God would choose me, the foremost sinner, to be his hands and feet, a reflection of him to the rest of the world.“Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise him.” Psalm 147:1 It is fitting for us to react to this truth with praise and live the rest of our lives making much of the one who saved us.
“If I love the Cross only for what it does for me, I will have reduced it to a monument to myself. But the greatest glory of the Cross is what it tells me about God. A God of justice and mercy. A God who loved helpless sinners like me so much that he came to die so we could be free to know and worship him for eternity” (Joshua Harris).
So let me ask you: Do you love the Cross because it makes much of you? Or do you love it because it enables you to enjoy an eternity of making much of God?
