What Is Your Aim?
By John Piper
Whether you eat or
drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. . . . And whatever you
do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God the Father through him. (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17)
When you get up in the morning and you face the day, what do
you say to yourself about your hopes for the day? When you look from the
beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because
you have lived?
If you say, “I don’t even think like that. I just get up and
do what I’ve got to do,” then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means
of grace and a source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy. It is
crystal clear in the Bible, including these texts, that God means for us to aim
consciously at something significant in our days.
God’s revealed will for you is that when you get up in the
morning, you don’t drift aimlessly through the day letting mere circumstances
alone dictate what you do, but that you aim at something — that you focus on a
certain kind of purpose. I’m talking about children here, and teenagers, and
adults — single, married, widowed, moms, and every trade and every profession.
Aimlessness is akin to lifelessness. Dead leaves in the back
yard may move around more than anything else — more than the dog, more than the
children. The wind blows this way, they go this way. The wind blows that way,
they go that way. They tumble, they bounce, they skip, they press against a
fence, but they have no aim whatsoever. They are full of motion and empty of
life.
God did not create humans in his image to be aimless, like
lifeless leaves blown around in the backyard of life. He created us to be
purposeful — to have a focus and an aim for all our days. What is yours today?
What is yours for the new year? A good place to start is 1 Corinthians 10:31,
“Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
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Glory Is the Goal
By John Piper
Through him we have
also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2)
Seeing the glory of God is our ultimate hope. “We rejoice in
hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). God will “present you blameless before
the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).
He will “make known the riches of his glory for vessels of
mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:23). He “calls you
into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:12). “Our blessed hope [is]
the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus
2:13).
Jesus, in all his person and work, is the incarnation and
ultimate revelation of the glory of God. “He is the radiance of the glory of
God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). “Father, I desire that
they . . . may be with me where I am, to see my glory” Jesus prays in John
17:24.
“So, I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a
witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is
going to be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1). “The creation itself will be set free from
its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children
of God” (Romans 8:21).
“We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God
decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7).“This light
momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all
comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). “Those whom he justified he also glorified”
(Romans 8:30).
Seeing and sharing in God’s glory is our ultimate hope through
the gospel of Christ.
Such a hope, that is really known and treasured, has a huge
and decisive effect on our present values and choices and actions.
Get to know the glory of God. Study the glory of God and the
glory of Christ. Study the glory of the world that reveals the glory of God,
and the glory of the gospel that reveals the glory of Christ.
Treasure the glory of God in all things and above all
things.
Study your soul. Know the glory you are seduced by, and know
why you treasure glories that are not God’s glory.
Study your own soul to know how to make the glories of the
world collapse like the pagan idol Dagon in 1 Samuel 5:4. Let all glories that
distract you from the glory of God shatter in pitiful pieces on the floor of
the world’s temples. Treasure the glory of God above all this world.
Source: “Solid Joys” - Daily Devotionals from John Piper.
December 27 & 28, 2017,
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