For God’s Glory and Our Good

God is glorified when His people follow Him His way, and His people experience His good blessings as a result of following Him His way. The previous sentence is certainly a condensed summary of God’s Word (Bible), the promises found in His Word, and the experience of those who follow Him His way (Romans 8:28).

One of the primary beliefs and driving forces for Reach is the desire to see and experience everything God has for His people, for His glory and our good.

When God created the universe it displayed His glory – existence, brilliance, power, and love (Ps. 19:1). When God revealed Himself through His Word (Bible), and His Son, they also pointed to His Glory (John 14:6-11). The Bible reveals that God is worthy of glory and worship. He is the One true Creator and Sustainer of everything that exists (Rev. 4:11).

The Bible tells us that God is glorified when His people live His way. One of the reasons He is glorified is that His ways work. When we live His way, people see and experience the love and goodness of God (Matt. 5:16; 1 Cor. 10:31).

The Bible and life reveal the reality of this simple truth. When we live God’s way life works, when we don’t, life does not work. I know this may sound like an oversimplification, but it’s true nonetheless.  I am not saying that life will be perfect. That genie left the bottle when the first humans chose not to follow God His way (Gen. 2:16; 3:1-6).

Since the moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God, we have lived in a fallen world and experience all the problems that go with living in a fallen world. However, God so loved the world, that He provided the solution to our problem. He sent His Son Jesus to provide a way back to a right relationship with Him (click here for details), and a way to live so we could avoid the destruction of not living His way (Romans 6:23;  2 Chron. 7:14; Ps. 81:13).

It is vital that we see God the way He has revealed Himself to be. That is one of the reasons He reveals Himself to us through His Word and His Son. The reality is that God loves us and has provided a way for us to know Him and experience His love (John 3:16; John 14:6). He has created us and has a purpose and plan for each of our lives, and we can know them by living His way (Jer. 29:11-13).

God tells us that He hates sin because of what it does to people; people created in His image, who He loves (Matt 23:37; Gen. 1:26-27). As parents, we are the same way. We hate sin because we know the devastating effects it has on our children, those we love, the communities we live in, and the world. God is no different and knows far better than we do the destructive impact sin has on us and the world we live in.

God created us to experience all of Him (an abundant life – John 10:10) and the blessings that go with this. One of the reasons that many people are not experiencing all that God created us for, is we are not living His way. That is a very broad statement and has several sub-reasons that fall under it.

First, if we have not repented and surrendered our lives to Jesus as Savior and Master we are not following God his way (Galatians 2:20, John 3:16) and cannot experience the abundant life He created us to live (John 3:18; 2 Peter 3:9; 1 Tim 2:4).

The abundant life that Jesus was talking about is a life filled with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). This is referred to as the “fruit of the Spirit”.

Second, if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus, but are not in His Word (Bible) daily allowing Him to speak to us, feed us, and transform us, we are in a dysfunctional relationship and malnourished. Since the relationship Jesus died to give us is an intimate relationship where we follow Him in complete trust, we must remain connected to Him (John 15:1-8).

Third, if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus but are not loving God and others with everything we have we will not experience all that He created us to experience (Matt. 22:37-40)

Fourth, if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus but are not telling others about Jesus and teaching them how to live his way we will not experience all that He created us to be (Matt. 28:18-20).

These four reasons are at the heart of not experiencing all that God created us to experience and we believe that can be changed if we get busy doing what God created and called us to do. For these reasons, we desire to train every follower of Jesus to reach their circle of influence with the Gospel so they can experience all that God created us to be.

Imagine a community, a city, a state, a country, and a world where its people followed God His way. It would be heaven on earth. I realize that the only time we will experience Heaven on Earth is when Jesus returns for His millennial reign (Rev. 20:4), but, the King left (Acts 1:8-9) and has left us to take care of His business (Matt. 28:18-20, Matt. 25:14-30) until He returns.

If His followers follow Him His way, we will see our lives, communities, cities, states, country, and the world transformed just as it was when the first-century followers of Jesus lived His way. Our world is as it is (the good) because of Jesus and those who followed Jesus His way, and it is the way it is (the bad) because we have failed to live His way.

We can change the free fall if we repent, surrender, and live God’s way (2 Chronicles 7:14).

If you want to experience all of God and the life He created us to live for His glory and our good, join us and partner with us in fulfilling God’s “Great Commission” by getting trained (Reach Training and Resources) sharing our information – Reach Evangelistic Association – with every follower of Jesus you know.