The Wasted Life

A believer’s single passion in life should be the same as God’s passion: “God’s passion was the display of His own glory and the delight of my heart.” (pg. 28) God getting glory and me delighting solely in Him go hand in hand although most people do not realize this. When we enjoy God, we glorify Him; when we enjoy Him we display Him and His supreme value. I was created to live with the sole passion of glorifying God through enjoying Him and showing His excellence to people in all areas of my life.

Isaiah 43:6b-7 says, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Here we see that we were created for the glory of God. Failing to live for God’s glory means that a person will live a wasted life. As sort of an example, one of the main reasons a carpenter makes a chair is for the purpose of people sitting on it; however, if it is never used for sitting but used instead, say, for fueling a fire, it has been wasted of its created purpose. This is similar to a Christian’s life; if he was made to glorify God and yet does not live for the glory of God, he has wasted his life and not fulfilled the reason that he was made.

When we glorify God we are essentially magnifying His glory; we are revealing to other who God really is and putting on display His worthiness of worship. Piper says this about the wasted life:

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life.” (pg. 32)

That is why 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Piper goes on to say:

“God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes Him [God] look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that He really is.” (pg. 32)

To not live for God is to live a wasted life; to live and not point people to God is selfish and unloving. We see God’s love displayed in giving us eternal life which—according to John 17:3—eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ. Christ died and suffered so that we might be brought to God! (1 Peter 3:18) I really love what Piper says about God’s love of sacrificing His own Son for us. This love “must rescue us from our addiction to self and bring us, changed, into the presence of God.” (pg. 36) If we fail to share this great news with others we fail to love them!

Glorifying God is not to be done so that we ourselves feel loved, used, or needed by God. Piper says, “God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of Him in every part of our lives.” (pg. 37) He closes the chapter with this:

“Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain.” (p. 40)

The Gospel fully displays God’s glory and it gives us a reason to live our lives. When we cling to the cross we cling to God’s love for us. When we cling to God’s love and when we truly understand the depth of His love for us we can do nothing but honor, glorify, and worship Him.