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Glory Hogs Fade, but God's Glory Remains
This is part 18 of "The After Party," our series at Fusion Christian Church on the book of Acts. Follow along as we explore what happened to the church after Jesus ascended to heaven. In this message, Pastor Zac teaches that God is worthy of all glory and warns about what happens when we don't offer it to him.
The downward spiral of being a glory hog.
Glory hogs start with pride, chase applause, are left empty, and end in death. When we pursue our own glory instead of God's it stems from a place of pride. It starts by thinking that we are greater than our creator. The result is that we continue in a neverending pursuit of something that will never satisfy us anyway. We were made to worship God, and worshipping ourselves does not fill that void. Ultimately, those who worship themselves and live as glory hogs will die apart from God.
Glory hogs steal what belongs to God.
Part of the reason worshipping yourself leads to death is that we are stealing from God what is rightfully his. It is crazy for us to steal from God and think that there will not be consequences. Of course, by trying to take glory from God, we also starve ourselves of joy bit by bit. So how can we avoid stealing the glory for ourselves?
Redirect the praise.
By redirecting our praise toward God, we place him back at the center. When we praise God above all else, we are choosing to focus on him. By deciding not to play our own fanfare and instead to prioritize God, we recognize that he is greater and eliminate our own pride.
Don't just give God more glory, give him ALL glory.
It's not enough for us to give God just a little bit of praise, because he deserves all the praise. We must choose daily to give God all glory, honor, and praise, because reserving any of it for ourselves creates a bastion of pride. We owe God everything simply because he created us and sustains our every breath, and much more because he sent Jesus to die for our sins. It is only right for us to pay what we owe.