Day 15 - The Display of His Divine Splendour

Sometimes we might all wonder why things are like they are in our lives but you were created for a specific purpose; your function is to glorify the Creator (see Isaiah 43:7).

In fact the whole of life should glorify the Creator, and everything we do should be done with that aim in mind.

God help us all! Living entirely for God, honouring his Word, amplifying his name - this is what we have to do. What an awful responsibility!

Jesus led a holy and perfect life; only a life like that perfectly reflects the glory of God into the world and we should always be trying to imitate him if we want to spend our life as we should.

While Christ was with us in the body, he was the perfectly expressed image of the invisible Father. The true, holy character of God was revealed through his human life to a lost and backward falling world.

Being God and man, at one and the same time, he had a physical and visible form; he could display the holiness of God in full view of the whole world. Jesus' life was only perfect because it was given as a sacrifice for us; his life was holy only because it was a life sacrificed to God. No life can be filled up with God and used to his glory unless it is sacrificed to him first.

As a direct consequence of giving himself to God as an offering for us, Jesus was left without a body or a human life through which he could demonstrate the grace of God and the kingdom to the world. But now comes the command to us, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship." Romans 12:1.

The divine plan for you is that your life should be offered up in sacrifice, so that you are no longer yours but his. When you do it, your life will no longer be worldly like ordinary earthly-minded people. You will become a new creation. Yours will be a transformed life, a life in which God can live and do his will, a kingdom life. Through Christ's sacrifice, God will take your sacrificed life and live in it, demonstrating God and the kingdom again to the world through you. That is your real calling in life. You are absolutely the right vehicle to convey the holiness and grace of God to an unbelieving world.

After all, why were you created, and why do you live in the place you occupy in creation? You are not insignificant. God stoops to walk and talk with you. He holds you in his hand. Angels minister to you. When you pass through the waters, God himself will be with you so that you will not be swamped by them, and when you walk through fire, he will walk with you so that you will not burn; because you are precious in his sight, and honoured, and he has set his heart on you. You are so precious to him that he gave his only begotten Son to die to ransom you.

And so just what position in this enormous universe do you occupy? I will tell you - you stand out above everything else as a creature that bears the stamp of the divine image, someone endowed with eternity. You were made capable of holding conversation with the Creator; your relationship with God is the same as that of a child with their parent.

Made in the likeness of God, you step out onto the world's stage to play the lead role in the drama of this created existence. The bursting songs of the morning stars as they sing together, pouring their anthems into the ears of God, are not half as sweet as the sound of praise and adoration from your holy soul.

You were created for the very highest purpose. You have been chosen to represent the divine character. On any stage men and women represent various personalities and you, on the great stage of life, have been selected to depict the holy character of God. You have the highest and most responsible part, the lead role.

A long time ago, the eyes of heaven, earth and hell were turned towards the first man as he stepped out onto the stage to play the same part - in a garden east of Eden. Would he play his part well?" A sad story; he failed and he fell, causing angels to weep and God to be sorry that he had ever made him. Man was robbed of glory and the devils were rejoicing about it.

But heaven's love was attached firmly to him, and God knew a way for fallen man to be lifted out of his deep and degraded pit bottom to the high position he once occupied. There was only one way to redemption, and one price to pay for it.

The price was paid; the divine image was again stamped on man so that he could come out onto the stage again in Christ and reveal the character of God to the world.

Again now the eyes of earth, heaven and hell are focused on us. "We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men." 1 Cor. 4:9. "Men" includes both good and bad; likewise the term "angels" includes both good and bad angels. So earth, heaven, and hell are spectators. To live your life as it was originally intended you have to act out the part on the stage of your life in a way that honours God and portrays his character to this huge crowd of onlookers.