“The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Thus says the Westminster Catechism. God’s glory and our joy are bound together in our experience with God. John Piper puts it like this, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Puritan Pastor, Jonathan Edwards declared, “The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which God is magnified and exalted.”
We get glory from God when we give glory to God. This is the glory that Adam lost and what Jesus came to restore,
“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one...Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:22, 24)
How can we experience that glory?
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Cor.3:18).
All that we go through—especially the groans—lead to glory, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” (2 Cor.4:17).
Yet, whatever experience of God’s glory we may know in this life, cannot compare with what awaits. Romans 8:17-18 promises, “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” This is glorification. We shall behold God in all His glory and be changed into His likeness!
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