To God Alone Be the Glory

"To God alone be the glory.  To God alone be the praise, everything I say and do, let it be all for you, the glory is yours alone."


Boy, has God been dealing with me on this subject.  He has been letting me know that He is not going to share His glory with anyone or anything else.  In fact, He told me yesterday that He wanted to take first place in my life.  He didn't ask me, He told me!

I can tell you that although I've been saved for nine years, I have not allowed Jesus to become Lord of my life.  I haven't allowed Him to call all of the shots, and He's getting more aggressive about wanting too.   I'll give you an example;  a few days ago my  husband and I were driving home when suddenly he tells me that we have to stop by his sisters house to pick something up.  Immediately, I felt a tug from the Holy Spirit that I needed to get out and go inside.  However, I had other plans.  I wanted to stay in the car, keep quite and go home because I had somewhere else that I needed  to be later on that evening.  So, I told my husband to go on ahead and that I'd just wait for him.  Suddenly, I realized that I had just placed my own wants and desires above Jesus'.  When I realized what I had done, I repented, relented and got out.  What was the outcome?  Jesus wanted to give me an  opportunity to minister to a 21 year old.  A seed was planted and who knows what Holy Spirit's gonna do with it.

Throughout my life I've been guilty of placing many things above God. A partial list would include; addictions, people, thoughts, jobs, relationships, fixations, my own opinions,etc.....  You name it, I could find a way to idolize it. According to my Pastor; an idol would be anything that a person gives their energy and time to over God. This is a dangerous trap to fall into because we are repeatedly warned in the scriptures that God is a jealous God.  He wants all of us, and He will absolutely not share the lime light with anyone.  He doesn't have to because everything already belongs to Him.

I mean I didn't deliberately sit out to disobey God, I simply ignored His instructions and did what I wanted to do instead.  I never once said to myself or dared ever say to God that I wasn't going to listen to His directions, but my actions spoke louder that a thousand thoughts, or words. And as we  already know actions are what's important to God.  I mean it's easy to sing, "I surrender all", but does God have to tackle us to the ground each time He asks us to do something?  This question merits an answer.

Also, it's very easy to elevate people over God .  Especially,the ones who profess to be working for Him. Yep, I'm talking about TV evangelists, Preachers, Pastors, or religious organizations.  We must always remember that they should be working for God's glory and not for their own.  Whatever talents and wisdom they have, they've received from God- not themselves.

 Honestly, I have to be extremely careful not to fall into this trap.  Because I received no love or attention from my parents when I was younger, I quickly developed attachments to other older adults.  These people became the center of my universe.  When I needed advice, or a hug or some attention, I automatically ran to them.  This habit did not just disappear when I became an adult.  The truth is; I still have to constantly remind my self to both think about and go to God first, and if He wants me to receive assistant from someone else, He'll direct me to them.

Finally, the thought that God is jealous for my attention, amazes me.  He doesn't need me, He is not dependent on me, but yet He honestly wants all me.  As nutty as I am, He wants me warts and all!  I think that I want to get to a point in my life where I'm likewise jealous for God.  I want to crave His attention just as much as He wants mine.  Because in the end everything that we've tried to exalt over God will turn to dust or become meaningless, but God will still be here because He will exist forever!