One Thing That You Can’t Give God

I don’t want this to be a nerdy theological piece to put you asleep, nor splitting hairs where hairs don’t need to be split. I want this piece to excite you and allow your worship of God to be deeper and more accurate.

I found something that we can’t give God. However, people are constantly trying to give it to Him. You hear it all over Christian radio and throughout Christendom. What is it?

Press on with me as I reveal a treasure that I found while digging through the book of Ephesians. The thing we can’t give God can be focused on, but not given to Him. We can point people to it, but we can’t give it to Him. We can understand clearer, but we can’t give it to him. We can even magnify it but we cannot add anything to God.

Glory. There, the cat’s out of the bag. I am not trying to start a theological fight. There is enough to divide over these days. I just want to challenge you with what God is showing me from His word. We hear songs about glory. There have been whole sermons preached about glory. I have even been guilty of saying this, but there are even songs that repeat it over and over again. (Check out this song.)

We need to define Glory and look at what happens when we understand why God having it is so awesome, and why we can’t give it to Him.

Glory defined, “Since Kabod derives from Kabed, “to be heavy” it lends itself to the idea that the one possessing glory is laden with riches.”1 God’s glory is the sum total of everything He is;

attributes like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and immutability belong to Him alone. Nothing can either be taken away from God or added. He is everlasting.

We must understand that God’s glory can’t be given to Him but comes from Him. This puts to death the false ideas in modern man’s mind of autonomy and narcissism. Man does not make up his own laws, and the world does not revolve around us. Even if it did, what a peculiarly small universe it would be.

The two verses that express this truth are Ephesians 1:12, 14. This whole chain of events began to take place in my life as I began to memorize the book of Ephesians, and I was meditating on these two verses one day as I was reviewing the first two chapters. Here are three points on how to rightly handle the glory of God in our life, mind, and mouth.

1. (Life) We should point people to all of who God is.

Habakkuk 2:14: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea.”

There will be a day that the weighty knowledge of God will fill the minds of the inhabitants on this earth, like water fills the seas and splashes up on the coastlines. However, notice that nothing nor no-one is giving Him glory. They are simply growing in their knowledge of HIS glory. It gets to such a point on the earth that it is filling the entire earth! Just take a second with me to pause and ponder that amazing thought during the craziness of 2020. When we love people enough to serve them and speak His truth, we are pointing people to his glory. In a real sense, we are magnifying His glory but not adding to God.

2. (Mind) Admire, except, and understand it more.

John 17:4–5: “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”

This is a holy transaction. There is only one that brought the father glory! It was the God/Man Jesus Christ. Notice that He is doing the father’s work on earth and now, in this passage, is returning to His glorious position with the father in heaven before this old ball of dirt (us) even began. This almost brings me to tears as I type this; I get so home sick when I think of this scene in heaven.

Let’s admire this passage for what it really is: the transaction of the Son finishing His job here on earth and entering back into His rightful place beside the father. Let’s accept this truth as the apex of God’s glory. This is where the Father and Son dwell together in all authority, judgment, truth, knowledge, wisdom, etc. Let us all grow in our understanding of this glory as it—I want to borrow Habakkuk words— “filled” with the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord.

3. (Mouth) Focus on and praise God for having Glory and revealing it to us.

Will we end where we started: with praise and wrestling with the idea of how many times we have all either sung or said, give God the glory. Am I telling you not to sing either the song or say the line? No. Just change it bit. Say something like, “God, I praise your glory.” Check it out below.

Ephesians 1:12: “So that we were the first to hope in Him might be to the praise of His glory.”

Ephesians 1:14: “Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.”

The text is really straight forward. Paul along with all who hope in Jesus during his lifetime were the first generation to believe in the resurrected Savior. Then, the Holy Spirit came as guarantee of our inheritance until we receive it on that amazing day. The hope we have in Christ and the Holy Spirit should motivate us to praise this Glorious king! Praise Him!

Praise Him in your work, in the songs of your heart, and in your family.

Worthy is the Lamb!

We cannot give glory to Him, but we can point people to all He is, we can admire Him, and we can praise His glory. Let’s do that as we proclaim the Gospel to see lives transformed. Remember, the truth worth proclaiming is the truth that transforms

1 Pg 484; Evangelical Dictionary Of Theology, Edited by; Walter A. Elwell