To God alone be all the glory

October 2, 2007

By Randy Mantik

Recently some friends returned from Gettysburg, Pa., and gave me a wonderful book filled with Civil War facts on the Battle of Gettysburg. I’ve been learning all sorts of tidbits about the battle fought there in the summer heat of 1863.

One story I found especially interesting was about a general from New York who made a controversial, yet arguably successful move with his troops, bringing them far in front of the other Union troops in a highly difficult position to defend. The general’s name was Daniel Sickles.

Years later, to commemorate his daring military action, a unique, five-sided monument with concrete pillars was built in his honor. It was also to house a full-size likeness of Sickles. After it was built, a mysterious lack of funds kept the statue from being made and installed.

Upon investigation, a New York City controller found that $28,000 had been embezzled, pilfered by the very man in charge of the project: a 93-year-old, one-legged man who fought at Gettysburg — none other than former U.S. General Daniel Sickles. The monument remains empty to this day.

Someone has said that when a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package. There is something poignantly true about that. Like General Sickles, man can make a monument or a throne for himself, but he cannot occupy it. Think about it.

After the Flood, people began to re-establish civilization. As they came together, they decided to build not just a city, but an edifice. “Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth’ ” (Genesis 11:4, NIV).

We may be tempted to think arrogant pride pervading our generation is some recent event. Scripture tells us that fallen humanity has always tried to be in the center of all things. But there is only room for one Person in the center — God.

I’ve heard it aptly put that history is “His-story.” Picture a world or a universe without God. What are we without God? I believe King David pondered that same question millennia ago when he wrote, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens” (Psalm 8:1).

Maybe you can imagine David as a shepherd boy lying on a hillside near Bethlehem, gazing up at the starry sky and considering what God has made. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3,4).

We need to realize God loves us in spite of how we are, not because of how wonderful we are. God has sent His Holy Spirit to reveal His Son to us that we might live in Him and in His perfect beauty.

The glory of salvation is not our own perfection. No, the glory of God’s salvation is that the beauty of Christ is seen in us. “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

As we see His glory, we realize how far short of it we fall. But we have the privilege of inviting the only perfect One of creation to be central in our lives.

Randy Mantik is senior pastor of Crossroads Church of the Assemblies of God in Pembine, Wis.