Resolution Two

Resolved, to place value on and pursue only activities which bring God glory.

There is an old Reebok commercial that says, "Life is short, Play hard!" Well, I agree with the first statement. Life is short. Also true is the statement, "You only go around once." If we put those together, we get one shot with a short life. How can we make it count for something? The world would have us enjoy our one shot at a short life. "Play hard!"

My own life is often filled with enjoyable things. And God did create us to enjoy life. The often quoted verse of 1 Tim. 6:17 says,

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

But it is interesting to note that the emphasis of this verse is not toward enjoying life, but placing our hope in the right place. It is not combatting those who are aesthetics and ignoring the secular for the spiritual; but those who, like us, are materialists and are placing their hope in their things. Even though God did create us to enjoy life, enjoyment of life is NEVER found in the things of life; instead as we place our hope in Christ, we are able to enjoy life. And when our hope FOR life is set beyond the things OF life we can find true enjoyment. No matter what our life situation is.

The best way to enjoy and to have a fulfilling and meaningful life is to fix our hope on Christ; as we do this it practically impacts the way we live. We will find ourselves pursuing only those things that have significance. I'm still trying to work out the ramifications of this. What actually has significance? My tendency in the past has been to ignore the secular for the spiritual, but I am not trying to say that we can only enjoy and pursue spiritual things in life. When God created the world, He took delight in His creation. One of His creations was mankind. As men and women, we can image Creator God and create many different things with our lives. In his book on common grace, He Shines in All That's Fair, Richard Mouw says,

Let me be concrete: I think God takes delight in Benjamin Franklin's wit and in Tiger Woods's putts and in some well-crafted narrative paragraphs in a Salman Rushdie novel, even if these accomplishments are in fact achieved by non-Christian people. And I am convinced that God's delight in these phenomena does not come because they bring the elect to glory and the non-elect to eternal separation from the divine presence. I think God enjoys these things for their own sakes.

I am inclined to agree, yet realize the danger of overemphasizing this truth would be placing too high a value on man's creations. So, God is glorified as we use our creative energies and image Him in this world, yet I don't find the pictures given us in Revelation have too many man made creations around the throne praising God. I think this area calls for much discernment, probably more than I have.

In the end, I am convinced of one thing - that God's greatest glory can be pursued in those activities which make much of Christ. When Christ is uplifted, God is glorified. If Christ is debased or marginalized, God is not glorified. It is my resolution to make each activity in my life a part of the pursuit of making much of Jesus.