created for glory II

Our need and desire for significance - worth - value - glory - is not our problem. We were created for ¹glory; to receive it, experience it, reflect it back to the Source, and out to others.

Why? Because God is all glorious (most valuable, significant etc.). To experience his glory, we must take part in it.

To take part in it we must be like God i.e. designed to take part. We cannot partake of his glory if we do not have the capacity

to experience it i.e. we are created for glory;  God's glory. 

In and by participating in His glory (significance, value etc.), we experience our own.

This is part of being in God's image. We are like God i.e. designed to behold and enter into His glory and thereby experience our own. Our greatest sense of meaning and purpose (happiness) is obtained by partaking in God in all His glory.

This also explains why everything we do apart from God -- i.e. actions that are not driven by the Spirit-Love of God -- does not truly satisfy. They are attempts to gain or restore the glory we lost and so desperately desire - an attempt to gain a sense of meaning, significance, worth, purpose, love, etc. through our finite, feeble, independent, self-sustaining efforts.

We can never successfully (i.e. permanently) find satisfaction outside of God since He created us for infinite and ultimate glory which is only in and through Him.

A desire for worth isn't our problem; our attempts to acquire it (i.e. " self-worth") apart from and outside of God is. An infinite need for worth-glory can never be satisfied by a finite source, i.e. by us and our use of created things (including other persons) outside of us. 

Our need is infinite because God is infinite in love-glory. We were designed to be engaged with and for the infinite i.e. God. This is where we shine brightest - best - and have our greatest sense of joy, meaning, and purpose...worth. It is who we are meant to be and what we are designed for. Nothing else works long-term.

Fallen from glory...

To behold God's glory we must be able to see his glory. To see it, God must reveal himself to us. Why? Because we have turned away from God, severing our relationship with him and all the infinite love and life that comes through that relationship/union. 

We cut ourselves off from our Source by acting contrary to His loving direction and design and are now broken and ²empty and unable to see God in all his glory -- though we can certainly see enough to know something significant about him Rom 1:19-20.

Still created for it...

Nevertheless, even in our present state of separation from our Creator, we are still created for glory i.e. we long for it and still have the capacity to behold His glory, just like a person with cataracts still has eyes capable of seeing that have been blocked and blinded by disease. God must do spiritual surgery and remove the obstruction -- our self-centeredness along with all its effects -- before we can ³see clearly again.

When the obstruction is removed and our eyes are opened (unblocked and clear), we again began to see God in his infinite majesty, beauty, wisdom, power, and love (i.e. his glory). We find what our hearts have longed for all along and we start to fill with light again and a sense of purpose and completeness. 

The more we focus on this most glorious God, the more we experience and participate in the glory we were originally designed to have. As we do, we increasingly are filled with his glory, and are transformed and shine it back to him and out to others.

2Co 3:18  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image (the Source of our God-likeness) from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 

John 17:22  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one... - (Christ praying to the Father).

Rom 8:21  that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

1Co 13:12  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face (with Christ). Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

1Jn 3:2  Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears (when Christ is displayed to us in all his glory) we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (i.e. in all His glory).

Mar 12:29  Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'  31  The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." 

For more on what God is like and how we are like him click here and here.  

For more on how we are hard-wired for glory click here. 

For more on how God's glory is our highest good click here. 

Is God's glory and our delight in conflict? Click here

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¹What would be the equivalent of the word glory today? If you look at the word in the original Hebrew and Greek, it gives us an interesting picture. 

Hebrew 

H3519   כּבד    כּבוד        kâbôd  kâbôd   kaw-bode', kaw-bode'

Definition:

From H3513; properly weight; but only figuratively in a good sense, splendor or copiousness: - glorious (-ly), glory, honour (-able).

Greek 

G1392  δοξάζω  doxazō

Thayer GDefinition:

1) to think, suppose, be of opinion

2) to praise, extol, magnify, celebrate

3) to honour, do honour to, hold in honour

4) to make glorious, adorn with lustre, clothe with splendour

4a) to impart glory to something, render it excellent

4b) to make renowned, render illustrious

4b1) to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged

From G1391

From the base of G1380  δοκέω

dokeō; from δόκος dokos (opinion); to have an opinion, to seem: - deem (1), expect (1), has a mind (1), inclined (1), recognized (1), regarded (1), reputation (3), reputed (1), seem (3), seemed best (1), seemed fitting (1), seemed good (4), seems (3), suppose (5), supposed (2), supposes (1), supposing (4), think (18), thinking (1), thinks (6), thought (4).

At first, it may not be apparent how glory - as defined in the Old Testament and New Testament - is connected. They seem to be very different. Where is the connection?

Originally Israel's economy was predominately agricultural, so the more weighty something was (or the greater the number, such as 1000 camels versus 100) meant the more valuable, like 10 bushels are heavier and therefore of greater value than one or several talents of gold weighed more than one. The greater or more "copious" the amount, the heavier its weight and the greater its value. 

To show forth or manifest the dignity and worth of something in the NT was to put it on display. Shining a light on a copious pile of gold coins would reveal the greatness of its value. Or as the definition indicates "...to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged..."

Within both definitions is the key idea of great value-worth. That we are in God's image and therefore can experience and display God's great worth/glory makes us significant and of great worth. We behold his infinite worth and display it to others. In so doing, we also find our greatest worth and glory i.e. purpose and meaning.

²it is not that we experience nothing of life, but we only experience limited aspects of physical and emotional life through the creation - i.e. by using our internal abilities/giftedness and the resources of the material world around us - but these are all finite (limited) and do not bring fullness of life we were designed for. We are made for the infinite i.e. God himself, the source of love, life and all things. We can not find true and lasting happiness until we find and engage the infinite God.

³We see truly again, once our spiritual eyes are restored - regenerated. But we do not yet fully see. We will see fully when we see him face to face.