March 2, 2007

My wife listens to CD’s during her commute. The other day she came home with a question she’d heard while listening to Clarence Schilt. “Is it more important to give God glory or to defend His reputation?”

My first instinct was that I’d been presented with a false dichotomy. These two choices had been artificially pitted against each other. Kelly would not let me off the hook and pressed me for an answer.

Since I took too long with my response she responded, “It’s obvious. God is too big to need someone else to defend Him. Our primary focus should be to give Him glory.”

I like to be needed, so defending God has some innate appeal. The answer to this question identifies primary motivational attitudes. I preached on prayer last week and talked about posture as symbolic of our attitude towards God. This question creates similar imagery.

I picture two postures for the answer to this question. When I give God glory, I am facing Him. When I am defending Him, I have my back to Him. And it seems that the more healthy posture is looking towards God rather than away from Him.

Letting body posture represent my attitudes and priorities helps me quickly evaluate where I’m at. Does your attitudinal posture in a given circumstance have you facing God or does it have you turned away from Him?

Using this criteria, I’m quickly convicted about a couple things. How about you?

“I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.” Psalm 16:8

Rejoicing in hope,
Pastor Steve