Good News: Thankfulness while Honoring God

When a bride and groom are standing before the preacher at the close of a wedding ceremony, does the preacher say, “Alright young man, I’m afraid you’ll have to kiss her now”? Or does he say, “You now get to kiss your bride”? He doesn’t have to kiss her; he GETS to kiss her! Our walk with God is the same.

Why look at glorifying Him as something we have to do? Why not view it as something we get to do? We get to be in partnership with the work of the Living God, what a privilege!

Glorify is a word we don’t use that much but some of its synonyms are words we use every day, words like honor, acclaim, exalt, celebrate, magnify, elevate, and adore. On the surface it may sound like an ominous task for a lowly human to glorify the God who spoke the world into existence, but the Bible lays out two elementary ways you and I can do it. We glorify the Lord vertically, that is, us looking heavenward in our personal alone time with Him in prayer and Bible reading, and then we are privileged to glorify Him horizontally as He uses us to reach out and minister in His name to those around us.

One of the ways we glorify and honor Him in our one-on-one relationship with Him is by being thankful. 1 Thes. 5:18 says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” So many people want to know what God’s will is for their life, well, there it is…be thankful. The writer of Hebrews in the New Testament wrote, “Let us all be thankful that we are a part of an unshakable Kingdom and offer to God worship that pleases Him and reflects the awe and reverence we have toward Him. (Voice trans.) Thankfulness is a choice.

We certainly don’t want to be like the people apostle Paul described in his letter to Timothy when he said one of the characteristics of last day people would be their ungratefulness. Thankfulness should be in every Christian’s DNA.

And then there’s obedience. It’s another way we get to honor God. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments. Paul told the Corinthians, “You were bought at a price, so glorify God with your body. (CSB) What we allow our eyes to look at, our minds to think about, and our tongue to talk about are all ways we honor or dishonor the Lord with our body. He gets glory when we obey Him in what He says about moral living, honoring marriage, and upholding His views on sexuality.

So then, it’s really not that hard to glorify God. We don’t have to move half a planet away and minister to unreached people groups. The foundation of what we need to do in our personal walk with Him is to be thankful and obedient.

More about how we glorify Him with our personal and church outreach next week.

Ken Staley is the pastor of Faith Church of Pleasant Grove 9:30 a.m. and Harrisville Methodist Church 11 a.m. Both are Global Methodist congregations. pastorkenstaley@gmail.com