When I as a younger man, that is than I am right now, I used to drive down the 405 freeway into Sherman Oaks for work. About 2 exits before I would exit the freeway it would start to back up quite fast and if weren't paying attention you would have to go from, in my case, about 80-90 mph (If my wife is reading this, it was more like 25-30 mph)to 0 mph in about 5.5 seconds. Well one day I was listening to the radio on my way to work and for some reason I got really into the discussion and stopped paying attention to my driving (If my sons or daughter are reading this, I better never catch you doing this while driving my car). Guess what came up on me real quick? Yep! the traffic. As I started to slow down I saw that the lane next to me had less traffic in it, thus giving me more time to slow down.....so I thought. When I changed lanes, wouldn't you know it, there was some guy in my blind spot, so I cut him off. My fault, not his. As we are sitting in traffic this guy that I cut off is cussing up a storm, calling me every name in the book....and I don't mean Barney, Fred and Wilma. He's using hand gestures to tell me how good my driving is and so on and so forth. Well this went on for about the next 5 minutes when the lane to our right opened up enough for him to move over. So as he's passing me, and I'm apologizing for my bone headed move, he's still calling me every foul word in the book. Finally his lane goes fast enough to pass me. When he went by, I noticed on the bumper he had one of those "fish" stickers and another sticker saying, "Follow me to...." with his churches name on it. Man, I thought to myself, what a testimony to all the people on the 405 that day. I will say one thing about that guy, he gave it his all. He was so mad that he didn't hold back one thing, except maybe taking me out.
In studying for a lesson I was teaching in our churches college group we looked at 1 Corinthians 10:31 "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." As I was studying the text I realized that I do not glorify God in everything I do. I do not give my best to an all glorious, all beautiful, all gracious and all forgiving God. In meditating on this I came up with a checklist of the following seven things. My hope and prayer is that I would go through this checklist every so often to make sure that I am glorifying God in a way He deserves.
1) Do I present myself like I desire to glorify God? This could be my general appearance, i.e. how I dress, how I smell, or it could be how I allow myself to be perceived, i.e. the way I speak, the way I write.
2) Do I tackle tasks so that God is glorified in how I accomplish the task? This would be the way I tackle my chores, studying for Sunday school, the way I follow through with tasks I am asked to do by others and the attitude presented while doing the task, preparing for the task and after the task.
3) Do I present the Gospel through my daily living in a manner that glorifies God? This would be what I watch, what I listen to, what I view on the internet and discerning between what is good and what is not. This would also being attentive to who I am around so that I do not cause someone to stumble.
4) Do I seek to glorify God in my treatment of Sunday’s? Do I attend church diligently? Do I attend Sunday School regularly? Do I look at who’s teaching that day and decide if I will attend or not? Do I look forward to Sunday’s?
5) Do I seek to glorify God when I am by myself? Do I let my guard down and allow myself to be less holy because no one is around to see me? Am I lazy?
6) Do I seek to glorify God in my time with Him? Do I see this as flex time? Do I seek accountability? Do I look forward to that time?
7) Do I serve in any way I can? Do I diligently seek opportunities to serve the local body?I hope I always remember that God deserves everything. He created me for His glory and not to glorify myself. For those of you who know me, feel free to ask me any of the above questions and please feel free to hold me accountable.
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