Children Desiring God

So I went to this conference last week with another couple from our church. I was familiar with John Piper and Desiring God, but I was not too familiar with Children Desiring God (www.childrendesiringgod.org). Boy was I pleasantly surprised.

The conference was great for my soul. The theme was Our Glorious God! And though I think that I generally have a high view of God, I am such a sinner and really do not view God as He describes Himself to be in His Word.

Piper was the keynote speaker and started off the conference with a message titled "The God-Centeredness of God." He talked about how the key to being God centered is to acknowledge that God is God centered. He is focused on His glory and thus by default not mine. Do you feel more loved by God when He makes much of you or when He enables you through the cross to make much of Him? I am not being God centered when the core of my love for God is centered on what He has done for ME.

• Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Who created the heavens to declare His own glory?
• Isaiah 43:7 "Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made." We also were created for His glory.
• John 12:28 "Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." Christ was willing to go to the cross to make God's name great.
• Philippians 2:9 "For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name," God raised Jesus for His own glory though Jesus.
• 2 Corinthians 5:15 "and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf." And we are redeemed, not to live for ourselves and our own glory, but for His.
  

Much has been made of God's love and justifiably so. But the main way God loves us is not by making much of us or sparing us from trouble. The main way God loves us is by lifting up the 1 thing that will provide the highest value and is the deepest act of love - the glory of God. Love provides the deepest and longest satisfaction - that can never be found in yourself but only in God and His glory. God exalts God so that we must exalt God.

I have been guilty lately of seeking God's grace for my comfort, for my purposes, for my service to Him, for my family, and for my happiness. Praise God that He so lovingly redirects me back to His mercy, His greatness, His sovereignty, His goodness, His kindness, His wrath, and His glory.