Question 6 (February 5, 2023)
Q: How can we glorify God?
A: We glorify God by enjoying him, loving him, trusting him, and by obeying his will, commands, and law.
MEMORY PASSAGE: Deuteronomy 11:1
You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.
Family Teaching Guide
DAY 1:
Recite question and answer then read the memory passage.
The sixth question naturally follows the fourth question. If God made us to glorify him, how then can we glorify him?
DISCUSS: One of the biggest questions we can wrestle with as human beings is why are we here? What are we made for. We have already seen that we are created to glorify God but what does that mean? How can we glorify him. When God created Adam in the garden, he gave Adam instructions. God made Adam to reflect his character and to live in a way that was marked by trust in and submission to God. God told Adam to do certain tasks and prohibited Adam from eating from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Wrapped into that is the idea of how Adam was to live and by extension, how God created all of humanity to live. We were created to love God, trust God, obey God and honor God with our lives.
Additional reading: Genesis 2:15-17
DAY 2:
Recite question and answer then read memory passage.
Loving God is what everything else that honors God flows from.
ASK: What does it mean to love God
DISCUSS: The answer to question 6 includes keeping God’s commandments. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was he cited the Shemah. This was memorized and recited by the Isrelites and Jesus said this was the first and greatest commandment (Matt 22:37-40). We are to obey from a heart that loves and treasures God above all else. Imagine if you are told by your mom and dad to go and do a task like clean your room and you go and do it but you complain and whine and are angry as you do it. You have done the action, but something is missing. While the task is done it isn’t done in a way that honors your parents because it isn’t done out of love for them and trust in them. God honoring obedience is joyful obedience that trusts God is for us and only gives us commands for our good. That kind of obedience only flows from loving and trusting God above all else. When we love and trust God, we recognize that God’s instructions are for our good and flourishing. They are for our protection and so we obey with happy hearts because we trust God is good and his instructions are good. That glorifies God.
ADDITIONAL READING: Deut 6:5; 1 John 5:3; John 14:23; Matt 11:30; 1 Cor 10:31
DAY 3:
Recite question and answer then read memory passage.
We glorify God by enjoying God.
DISCUSS: God doesn’t just want us to obey him and trust him but he created us to enjoy him. God is the best and greatest of all beings. Knowing him and enjoying him is the greatest joy in life. We glorify God by enjoying him and who he is. By living with him as our greatest treasure. In Psalm 16:11, the psalmist says that in God’s presence there is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore. Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord, again I say rejoice (Phil 4:4). The greatest joy we can have is to know the one true God. To be in fellowship with him and enjoy that fellowship with him. Jesus died and rose to bring us to God that we might enjoy him. John Piper says “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”. That is a great way of thinking of what it means to glorify God. If our greatest aim and delight is in him, we are showing his worth as the greatest object of our affections.
ADDITIONAL READING: Psalm 17:15; John 15:11; Habakkuk 3:17-19