His Glory and My Good

We face the temptation, rooted deep in our sin nature, to view God’s glory and our good as separate realities. Something might feel good to us that doesn’t glorify God, or even more confusingly, something might glorify God that doesn’t feel good to us at all. There is a great mystery here – one we often find difficult to bear with in our flesh. But more than difficulty, there is beauty and comfort to be found in this mystery.

In Beholding

I have seen my Father's glory revealed in Jesus Christ

And the more that I behold Him, the more He satisfies

When I gaze upon His beauty, when I see Him as I should

Then my eyes are lifted upward for His glory and my good

The simplest way to discover the union of God’s glory with our good is to look upon Him. When we see Him as we should, we are led to a different kind of understanding – of God and of self. The eternity that was set on our hearts in the beginning (Eccl 3:11) is stirred up to remind us of the big-picture reality we were made for.

As Paul puts it, “The things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18). When we take our gaze off of self and look instead to the unseen – the fullness of the glory of God in all of His holiness, justice, beauty, and limitlessness – the things of eternity become a firm foundation beneath us, steadying our hearts that we might see the good around us and the good that is to come.

At times, our circumstances will not appear to reflect goodness, and it is then that we are most desperate to look to eternity for help and for courage.

In Suffering

There is hope in every trial, for I can trust the Lord

He will turn my heart towards Him and help me bear the thorn

So in faith, I follow Jesus on the road not understood

For I know that He is working for His glory and my good

Notice that the lyric does not say, “There is hope in every trial, for things will go my way” or “for God will grant what I’ve asked” or “for I will be protected from hardship.” No – friends, we are promised trouble. It is uncomfortable to say and more uncomfortable still to believe, but it is the Truth, spoken from the mouth of Christ in John 16. We must accept that trials are a guarantee, but we also have our hope laid out plainly:

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Take heart, for Christ has the victory; there is hope, for I can trust the Lord. Our comfort is not that God will give us “good” as our limited human minds would conceive it. Our comfort is that we will always have our greatest good – the nearness and peace of God, and an eternity spent with Him. We have the certainty that He will never change and will, in all things, uphold us by His righteous right hand (Psalm 37:24).

And this brings about the glory of God. We have received all of His goodness in broken, messy vessels to reveal all the more His beauty and power. One day, as impossible as it may feel to us now, we will look back even on our suffering and count it as gain when we truly behold the fullness of God’s glory in Heaven.

“...we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies…

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…” (2 Corinthians 4:7-9, 16-17)

In the Cross of Christ

See the open arms of Jesus upon the cross that day

What they understood as weakness deserves my every praise

For the charge that was against me, it was nailed into the wood

Yes, I know that He has saved me for His glory and my good

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:5-6)

The ultimate revelation of God’s glory and our good is found in the cross of Christ. All of humanity walked in darkness and, for the good of sinners, God shone the light of His glory into that darkness. He brought redemption for the undeserving – good for the worst of the worst. And, in doing so, God put His greatness on display. What kind of power could raise a man from the dead? What kind of love would give His own Son? What kind of justice could accomplish the forgiveness of all sin? Only the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

He has come to rescue us – the people of His pasture – and He will return to bring us home.

In the End

Would I gladly be made nothing, that Christ would be made more?

Would I seek the only kingdom that far outweighs them all?

I will stand before my Father where the faithful saints have stood

And with joy, my heart shall praise Him for His glory and my good

One day – sooner than we might imagine – the glory of God and the good of mankind will be joined together in their perfected, eternal state as the heavens and earth meet once and for all. This is the hope we set our eyes on today; this is the kingdom for which we were created.

Even as we wrestle with our circumstances in the here and now – struggling with sin, grieving the pain of a broken world, striving in our flesh – we can know beyond any doubt or failure that what the saints have declared for centuries remains true:

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again.

This is our greatest and only true hope, and it can bleed into our life even now. We can experience the goodness and glory of God today even as we wait to see it in full.

This is the call: seek His kingdom and trust Him for the rest.

Take heart, believer, and know that God is always working for His glory and your good.