Prineville Presbyterian Church

 

“To God be the glory.”

This is how we come together following our time of reflection at the end of the sermon. We find this phrase in Galatians, and there are differences among the translations:

·         “To God be the glory forever and ever!” (The Good News Bible).

·         “All glory to God through all the ages of eternity.” (The Living Bible)

·         “May He have all the honor forever.” (New Life Version)

We quickly begin to see the enormity of this declaration as it means glorifying God through all time and at all times which includes all times within each of our lives!

So with this understanding then we should be doing those things that glorify God every second of every hour of every day of every week – month – year throughout our lives. A lot of those times in our lives that we more or less walk through without much thought now take on the urgency of always being, and always doing, the extraordinary for God.

As I think about how this applies to my own life, I would have to admit that this would go so far as to be a radical ambition for me as an ordinary Christian. It leads me to ask whether I’m saying “To God be the Glory” as a reality - or - is it a goal?

In his blog “A Few Thoughts About Being Ordinary Christians,” Tim Brister puts these ideas about ‘ordinary’ head to head against ‘radical’ as he raises similar questions. He concludes with: “At the end of the day, I don’t want to be ordinarily ordinary, but ordinary in every sense that Jesus defines ordinary. It just seems that such a notion is, well, a radical thing to do.”

May we strive to be ordinary in every sense that Jesus defines ordinary.
To God be the glory!
Pastor Mike