Chapter 17 - God’s Objective

MY objective is to glorify God. HIS objective is to conform me to the image of His Son. Objective: Man was made to glorify God. Rev. 4:11: “Thou art worthy; O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou hast Created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.” 1 Cor. 10: “Whether, therefore, ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

The glory of God becomes the focal point toward which I move as a Christian. I am doing this for the glory of God —all. What is your objective for living? The naked will of God is the means to glorify God. “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Why? Because the will of God is being done there. God wants people dedicated in every vocation of life. If you are selling neckties, the fact that God’s will is being done, glorifies Him. God’s will: want it as a holy thing; as a holy trust, whatever it is.

Eph. 2:10: “God has made us what we are, creating us in Christ Jesus for the good deeds which are prepared beforehand by God as our sphere of action.” (Moffatt)

Col. 1:16: “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him.”

Heb. 13:21: “Make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ: to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

Psa. 27:4: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.”

He didn’t make us because He needed us. He made us because of two reasons:

1. To glorify Him.

2. To do His pleasure and to do His will.

He gives grace and strength for the execution of His will, and if people will take a little time just to find out His will, it would glorify Him, and we would go leaps and bounds in the things of God. We have a moral and spiritual likeness to God. These are qualities not found in the lower creation. To man He says, “Here is the world; have dominion . . . bring it into subjection so it can serve you, and it will provide all your needs.”

I wish you could get the reaction that is in my heart when I look at your hungry hearts. It thrills me. It thrills me to know there are some people in this busy, wild, furious, rat race of a world who still are conscious there is God somewhere: “Where is He? Will somebody help me find Him?” That’s what I want too. I want to let God do the work that so many people are trying to do.

Our preachers, and people are so busy trying to help God along, but we don’t have to help poor God along. It’s all I can do, with what little vision I have, to keep up with Him! What a strange philosophy has bewitched the people! It has bewitched them. God does not need us in that sense. He wants to love us, and He wants us to love Him. When we have a philosophy reduced to such simplicity, we just sit down and say, “Is that all?” He says, “Yes.” If we love God perfectly, and we are conscious of His love filling us, we do all the things that are necessary.

Now, wouldn’t that take a burden off of ten thousand workers! They bear an assumed burden. I am not saying they are not burdened. There is a difference between a burden we assume—a religiousity, and a burden which HE brings, which is easy. It is light, and there is a sweet consciousness of that undergirding all the while we are carrying it.

He would be greatly helped if He could get some souls aroused, and awakened so that they would love Him, walk with Him, talk with Him, and live with Him. But you see, that reduces life to such simplicity, and our world seems to love complication; multiplied complications, which makes them feel they are going somewhere in the world. But what is their objective? GOD is our objective.

When the sound of God is in a meeting, how many know your heart knows it right away. That’s a hangover of creation in its loveliness when it was real in the beginning. Everything was fresh and untouched; undimmed. The response in Adam to God was instantaneous. God could come down and communicate with him, and discuss the things that were on His heart, show him His will, how to possess; how to reclaim the earth. That was all in the heart of God.

Man could respond when God came down in the cool of the evening, through a consciousness, (translated “sound”; or in English “voice”) when God hadn’t spoken yet. God had not spoken, yet they could hear Him. It’s that subtle, strange, mystical union that we have with God—a fellowship that doesn’t need words, how many know the closest, the loveliest things we have had in God cannot be put in words? Them is a joy; them is glory; them is a deep inner consciousness that no words can tell;—that sweetness; that inner communion; how many know it is past words? My deepest prayers have never been words; they are past words.

God always moves toward two striking objectives in His creation: His glory, and His pleasure. These are the two great objectives toward which life is focused. No one dares to be original in God today; this age won’t let you say, “Lord, what do YOU want?” Why were we made? I am sure we weren’t made for the objective most people have today. “The heavens declare the glory.” What are the heavens doing? They are doing the thing for which God made them. Even in inanimate creation, the first objective is “The heavens declare the GLORY of God.” Even though creation is under an awful bondage, it still breaks through, and there is glory. How can we glorify God? Wherever the will of God is executed, He is glorified. Do what the Lord tells you to do.

He told Adam, “Have dominion and authority, and cause nature to respond, and all these secrets that are now hidden, will be divulged to you. They will come to you as you grow With Me, and as I release them, and you are built to receive them, you can govern, possess, and move . . .” That was His program. So He Comes and deals with Adam. Adam gave Him great joy, and pleasure, and His creation functioned in the method, and procedure that it should follow. God rejoiced because He was finding satisfaction. God was being glorified.

Then came the temptation. Now temptations are always of the devil. Testings, and provings are always of God. God never tempts us. God proves us, and tests us unto strengthening; unto growth. All growth is under a law of testing and proving.

God had been absent in the interim when Adam sinned. Now, His first coming back, His first contact, is with a dead man with a moral and spiritual nakedness. “They hear the voice of God walking.” They were acute to catch the sound which accompanies the Presence of God; the sound which is indicative of His moving. It must have been terrible when He came down, and walked in the cool of the evening, and found no response. Have you ever lost a very dear friend? Isn’t it heartbreaking?—Lost—We can’t fix it, and we can’t mend it; we want to talk, and there is no voice.

God walked the earth to gain a little fellowship from His own creation—to have the understanding, and the mutual intercourse of spiritual life with Adam. Oh, the broken heart of God! We will know it, sometimes, if we ever fellowship with Jesus in all the fullness. How many know it enlarges our whole capacity for God, and I raise Him for every heartbreak. “Farther on, the way grows harder.” It HAS to.

The last year of Jesus was the terrifying, terrible year of His life and we follow in His footsteps. Is the servant above the Lord? “If he would follow Me,” Jesus said, “he must take up his cross.” What did the cross do to Jesus? It was the instrument upon which He died. What will my cross be? It will be the instrument upon which I die. But what a release! All heaven opened to Him, and so it will with us.

Adam, in the beginning, had a sensitivity to God; access to God; contact; he sensed God. That failure on Adam’s part didn’t finish God’s walking. When Jesus came, He came to walk the earth again, that He might bring to man the Word of Life and Truth, and begin an intercourse of spiritual understanding. He walked the earth for what? Seeking; seeking; hungry for fellowship.

The thing that would please His heart most, I think, is to have your heart in sweet fellowship with Him, more than anything you ever do or think. Why? Because that is something that nobody in the world can live but YOU. He has millions of angels serving him; many serving here, but few loves. It is so much more beautiful to sit five minutes in his Presence, and love Him! May God walk and talk within us.