How can I glorify God in everything I do?

The Lord give you to remember that your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, to be led by the Spirit, to walk by the Spirit - that whatever you do, in word or in deed, you are to show out the Lord Jesus - in buying or selling, in your dress, or in everyday duties of any kind, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. What is not that is sin, because it is self-will, self-pleasing. The Lord give those who are His to glorify Him in all things.

Thus filled, satisfied, and strengthened, we are called to dedicate ourselves, spirit, soul, and body, to the service of Christ; to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. We should have nothing else to do in this world. Whatever cannot be done as service to Christ ought not to be done at all. This simplifies the matter amazingly. It is our sweet privilege to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and to the glory of God. We sometimes hear people speak of "a secular calling," as contrasted with what is "sacred." We question the correctness of such a distinction. Paul made tents and planted churches, but in both he served the Lord Christ.

All that a Christian does ought to be sacred, because it is done as service to God. If this were borne in mind, it would enable us to connect the very simplest duties of daily life with the Lord Himself, and to bring Him into them in such a way as to impart a holy dignity and interest to all that we have to do, from morning till night. In this way, instead of finding the duties of our calling a hindrance to our communion with God, we should actually make them an occasion of waiting on Him for wisdom and grace to discharge them aright, so that His holy name might be glorified in the most minute details of practical life.

God has come down that we might know the whole story for ourselves in Christ. Love coming to us, and righteousness going to God. What we have to seek in everything is to glorify God - a thousand circumstances in life, but only one Object. The question is, whether we are living Christ in the ordinary circumstances of life - in honest toil and labour, in the calling in which we are (though if we cannot abide in the calling with God, we must leave it). Is it the one object of our lives to show forth Christ, to manifest Him in our mortal bodies, to realise more of Him by the power of the Spirit of God - is that where we are? And with thankfulness of heart that He became that Lamb of God, and has given us the Spirit to dwell in us.

It is a blessed thing in our common every-day life, that we can get Christ as our motive. If a man is fond of money or pleasure, it is the motive he has; that is what he is. If he is full of Christ, that is what he is. You may get two men doing exactly the same thing, only with different motives. With the Christian, Christ is his only motive, or ought to be. There may be a thousand things he has to do, common duties of life, but he can serve Christ in them, and there I get a motive powerful enough. Perhaps you have a froward master; well, you can glorify Christ in that. It is everything that the Christian should understand that he has no motive but Christ; many a thing to do, but no other motive but this. The common things of life do not unspiritualise a person; I must attend to them, and do them properly; but if my motive in doing them is Christ, it is a mistake to think that they hinder my soul in spirituality. Supposing I was making anything for Christ, do you think I should not make it as well as I possibly could? Well, then, we ought to do everything for Christ. It is every-day walk that characterises the Christian: "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus," because, if I cannot do it in His name, I ought not to do it at all. If I can do it in His name, there is the motive.

This is the all-important point for us. We cannot expect the world to see or feel with us as to matters of right and wrong. It is our business to look at things from a divine standpoint. Many things may be quite consistent for a worldly man to do which a Christian could not touch at all, simply because he is a Christian. The question which the true believer has to ask as to everything which comes before him is simply, "Can I do this to the glory of God? Can I connect the Name of Christ with it?" If not, he must not touch it.

It will, perhaps be said that the Christian ought to devote every day to the Lord. Most surely; we are the Lord's, in the very fullest and highest sense. All we have and all we are belongs to Him. This we fully, gladly, own. We are called to do everything in His Name, and to His glory. It is our high privilege to buy and sell, eat and drink, yea, to carry on all our business, under His eye and in the fear and love of His holy Name. We should not put our hand to anything, on any day in the week, on which we could not, with the fullest confidence, ask the Lord's blessing.

Such is the Christian's mission. He is not to shut himself within the walls of a monastery or convent. Christianity does not consist in joining a brotherhood or a sisterhood. Nothing of the kind. We are called to move up and down in the varied relations of life, and to act in our divinely-appointed spheres to the glory of God. It is not a question of what we are doing, but of how we do it. All depends upon the object which governs our hearts. If Christ be the commanding and absorbing object of the heart, all will be right. If He be not, nothing is right. Two persons may sit down at the same table to eat; the one eats to gratify his appetite, the other eats to the glory of God — eats simply to keep his body in proper working order as God's vessel, the temple of the Holy Ghost, the instrument for Christ's service.

So in everything. It is our sweet privilege to set the Lord always before us. He is our model. As He was sent into the world, so are we. What did He come to do? To glorify God. How did He live? By the Father. "As the living Father has sent me, and I Live by the Father, so he that eats me, even he shall live by me." John 6:57.

The Christian has the privilege in every day things of doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. People ask if there is any harm in a concert of sacred music. It is a cheat of the devil! Ask if they are going in the name of the Lord Jesus. They know they are not thinking of Him! Someone says, "Can't you come and see this beautiful scenery? God made it." "I know He did. Are you going in the name of the Lord Jesus?" It's the object, that's the thing. God sent honey to Jonathan when he was going through the wood, and he was refreshed by it. Very right and nice. But if he had been looking for honey, it would not have been fighting the Lord's battles. There was to be no honey in the sacrifices; but if God sends it, it is right to be refreshed by it, and I am thankful for it. The question is - where the mind of the man is set and living. If a person is in earnest to do the will of God (and the Holy Ghost could not lead us in our own will to amuse and please ourselves, He is not down here for that), if a person is anxious to live to God, and no one else, he says, "Give me a simple rule for the things that turn up every day." "Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." Then I live with Him in the every-day things. Suppose my father wants this book put that way, and I put it this way; it may be of no importance, but it is a proof I don't care for my father. If the blessed Lord is all to me, I shall be seeking to do everything in His name. We may forget - alas! we do - but if it is on my heart to please a person, I don't forget. Suppose I am walking thus in everything, I shall taste more of Christ, and it will give fixed happiness instead of grieving the Spirit for some foolish thing I shall not care for in a few years. I shall have Christ for my object in everything I do. We do think much of those we love in our conduct, and I shall have in my mind what He likes, if I love Him. That is what the Lord looks for as one who has loved us and given Himself for us in grace.

29 Christ has accomplished the work: God has accepted it and Christ sits there at His right hand till His enemies are made His footstool. When I say I am in Christ, there is this other blessed truth that Christ is in me. If Christ is in you, walk worthy of Him; being reconciled to God, Christ being your life, you are to glorify God in everything: "Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." You are not you own at all; if you want to be your own, you are not Christ's. What we have to do is to detect the evil in the heart, and thus not dishonour Christ before the world. I am no longer my own at all, but the epistle of Christ. People are to read Christ in you as the ten commandments in the tables of stone.

But in the New Testament we find the reverse of this. In the epistles, "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" are conspicuously absent. In the place of a list of clean and unclean meats, we find a general principle laid down which the believer is to apply to each case as it arises. "Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). Because the Christian has the "mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16) and has received "not the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7), he is called to judge by the word whether such and such a thing is for the glory of God or not, and to act accordingly.