Around here this saying “For the Glory of God” has become quite familiar.
We sing about it and preach about it. Many of the books I read are centered upon it. The shorter catechism that we teach our children asks this for question #3 Why did God make you and all things? To which they have learned to answer accurately For His own glory!
1 Corinthians 10:31 beautifully states “Therefore whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
The Glory of God is indeed the chief end of man. So, when man begins asking himself what he desires to do with his life? Somewhere in the answer we must certainly find Glorify God.
Anything short of this would be a wrong way of life and a wasted life.
It is with all of this in mind that I quote R.L. Dabney. This quote comes from Dabney writing on “What is a call to the ministry?” This quote stops me dead in my tracks and shakes me. Am I doing what I do for God’s glory?
“These scriptures, and a hundred others, plainly teach that the only condition of discipleship permitted by Christ to any believer is complete self-consecration to his service. In this the self-devotion of the minister is just the same as that of all other true Christians. If a Christian man proposes to be a teacher, physician, lawyer, mechanic, or farmer, it must be, not chiefly from promptings of the world or self, but chiefly because he verily believes he can, in that calling, best serve his heavenly Master. If he hath not this consecration, we do not say he is unfit for the ministry only, he is unfit to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.” (Bold emphasis mine)