Written by Dawn Rutan
I shared this quote from Tony Reinke in The Joy Project on Facebook:
“God’s glory and our most blissful joy collide into one end. Our collective joy requires majesty. We can have no true joy apart from his grandeur. To delight in God’s glory is the weightiest matter in the universe. We were made for this. To behold God’s resplendence is to be filled with his holy joy.”
That is a deep subject that requires more thought. It is perhaps illuminated by some verses from John’s gospel:
“I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed… But now I am coming to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (17:4-5, 13 ESV).
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (15:11).
The work of Jesus was to glorify God through the plan of redemption, which enabled God to draw men unto Himself for eternity. God had no need to create the universe or mankind, but He did so in order to share His love and joy with us. C.S. Lewis said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” God’s glory and our joy are inextricably linked.
Jude wrote: “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen”(24-25). In reading these verses this week, my first thought was to wonder whether the “great joy” referred to God’s joy or to our joy. The more I think about it, I believe it means both. God’s joy and ours will be mutual at that point. His glory will be magnified and our joy will be made complete.
In the meantime, it seems that the pursuit of joy and the pursuit of God’s glory are one and the same. As we pursue those things that glorify God, we experience the delights of His love and savor the joy of pleasing Him. That’s not to say that He doesn’t love and delight in us when we aren’t pursuing His glory, but our experience is tainted by sin, and we don’t perceive the relationship the same way.
After writing this far, I discovered this article by John Piper, God’s Glory and the Deepest Joy of Human Souls Are One Thing, in which he shares fifteen implications of this truth. Two of his points are: “sin is the suicidal exchange of the glory of God for the broken cisterns of created things;” and “Heaven will be a never-ending, ever-increasing discovery of more and more of God’s glory with greater and ever-greater joy in him.” So this pursuit of our joy and God’s glory is not limited to this life, but continues through eternity.
Piper is noted for saying, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” The Westminster Catechism states, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Let us pursue those things that glorify God and maximize our enjoyment in Him!
“…In Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
© Dawn Rutan 2016. The views stated may or may not reflect the beliefs of the pastor or leadership of Dulin’s Grove Church.
