As I begin my day today, this thought runs through my mind this morning and amazes me: whatever I do has the potential of bringing glory to God. I can bring glory to God Almighty! Not only can, but will, if all that I do is a wholehearted response to the grace he has lavished on me.

When I was a child, my father always led me and my 6 siblings in family worship. I must confess that I did not enjoy it for the most part. He was a fairly stern man, detached from his children relationally and the worship time reflected that. But I am so grateful now for his leadership in family worship and for his insistence on scripture memorization. One of the chapters we memorized was Romans 12. It begins, as we memorized it then from the King James Version, “I beseech ye therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” That verse has stayed with me, and mingles with my thoughts this morning. As I present my body to God for his use today, all that he brings to my life is for his glory. So much of the time even though I begin my day with reading and thought and prayer, by the time mid-morning comes around, I’m going full steam from one thing to the other, responding to circumstances without a conscious thought of the glory of God. That’s okay, on one hand, since at this stage in my life I can hardly keep two things in my mind at once, but what I want is a more abiding consciousness of doing all for the glory of God as I move through my day.

And the fact that all that I do can/will bring glory to him is astonishing. He calls, he brings the circumstances, he equips me with all that I need to present my whole self to him in responding to those circumstances and tasks, and then he accepts the work of my hands and heart.

It’s something to think about, isn’t it?