To God Be the Glory

You have heard it all before: "We're number 1."  "I am the greatest." "We're the bestthere ever was, is, or ever will be." While these sayings are sometimes expressed in a fairly innocent manner, Christians need to be careful about developing the prideful attitudes that can be expressed with such language.

Since the beginning of time, Satan has been trying to get humans to believe they are unbeatable. Do you remember when he convinced Eve that she would live forever even if she disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:4-5)? Satan wants us to sin against God by developing an arrogant spirit, instead of a humble one. In fact, he wants to see men becoming so puffed up that they begin thinking of themselves as being more of a god than a man.

Humans need to remember that there is only one God, and none of us is Him. God revealed this truth over 2,500 years ago when He said to the king of Tyre through Ezekiel: "You say, 'I am a god, and sit in the seat of gods, in the midst of the seas,' yet, you are a man and not a god" (Ezekiel 28:2). In the Bible, only the wicked promoted themselves to the status of God. Do you remember reading about King Herod's prideful spirit in the book of Acts? In writing about a meeting that the king had with a group of people from Tyre and Sidon, Luke wrote that "Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting, 'The voice of a god and not the voice of a man!' Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten of worms and died" (Acts 12:21-23).

The prideful spirit of Herod stands in direct contrast to the reaction of Paul and Barnabas when people at Lystra attempted to worship them (Acts 14:8-18). Had they had the same arrogant spirit as Herod, these two preachers would have accepted worship, and felt as if they deserved such honor. But instead, these Christian men "tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, 'Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you.'"

We are not God! God alone is worthy of worship (Matthew 4:10). The Bible says, "To Himbe the glory," not us (2 Peter 3:18). Let's make sure that when we do good things, they are done to bring praise and honor to God, and not ourselves (Matthew 5:16).

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