Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
The ESV uses this great word in our Verse of the Day, "Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength." David is writing here, and here's what he's doing. He’s calling God's people to acknowledge reality.
That's why the word is used here. "Recognize." It's to recognize something that is already there, that already exists. He's calling them to acknowledge reality, and the reality that he's calling them to acknowledge is that the Lord is glorious. The Lord is strong. Not believe that God is glorious or that God is strong. No, He is, and so recognize it. Acknowledge that the Lord is glorious, that the Lord is strong.
Ascribing Glory to God
When you ascribe something to God, we're not adding anything to Him. We're not giving anything to Him. We're not declaring our opinion of Him. To ascribe something to the Lord is to recognize something that is already true. If you're in a museum and you see a painting that you think is great and beautiful, you don't make it great, and you don't make it beautiful by saying it's great and beautiful. You're recognizing the beauty in that painting. When you ascribe to the Lord glory, when you ascribe to the Lord strength, you are acknowledging reality. You are recognizing that He is glorious and He is strong.
Where Are We Ascribing Glory?
The problem for many of us, the problem for me, is that I spend too much time ascribing glory to things that don't deserve it. I spend too much time esteeming things that don't deserve it, or talking about how great things are that might not deserve it, that certainly don't deserve it as much as God. Things like my job—I love my job, but it's nothing compared to God—or myself or my strength or my status. Or if I have success in some way, I can think about these things and the greatness of these things. That's a way of telling myself and telling others, look at me, or look at what I did, or look at how impressive I am. But nothing I am and nothing that I've done and nothing that you are and nothing that you've done stacks up against God.
Stephen Charnock said it simply. He said, "To glorify God ought to be the business of our lives." The psalmist says, "Not to us, but to Your name be the glory." The business of our life, the purpose of our life is not to give glory to one another. It's not to ascribe glory to ourselves. It is to ascribe glory to God all the time. Not just on Sundays, not occasionally, not just when you need God, not just when you are in crisis, but to recognize that the central purpose of my life is to recognize and declare the glory and the strength of God. It is why I exist. It is why I am here.
Living Free
In the moments when I can remember that and I can finally do this and live that way, then I stop competing for the attention and I direct the attention where it belongs. All of that is on God. When I do that, I'm free. I'm free because I'm living in a way and I'm doing what God has called me to do, and I'm living in accordance with who God has made me to be.
Where are you today? Where are you giving credit that belongs to God? Where are you ascribing glory? Who are you trying to impress when you should be trying to impress upon people the glory and the beauty of God? Because, as we're called here in 1 Chronicles chapter 16, verse 28, "Oh, nations of the world, recognize the LORD. Recognize that the LORD is glorious and strong."
