“Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.”
– Psalm 115:1
Oh, what a beautiful picture in Psalm 115:1. A picture of God’s steadfast love and God’s steadfast faithfulness toward us for His glory. This is awesome, the design of God, that He obviously deserves all glory. He is God.
Psalm 115:1 Reminds Us God Is Worth Of Glory
I was having a conversation recently with someone who was just really struggling with God receiving all glory and God even doing what He does for His own glory. Who else would you rather Him glorify? There’s no one else who is worthy of glory, who’s worthy of worship. God is infinitely glorious. There’s no one more loving. There’s no one more beautiful, no one more awesome, no more praiseworthy. He alone is worthy of glory. Yes, God is worthy of all glory.
Lord, may You become greater and may we become less. For the sake of Your steadfast love and faithfulness, may You receive all glory.
The beauty that we see in the Bible and the gospel is that God has chosen to glorify Himself by pouring out steadfast love and faithfulness on all who trust in Him. Yes, Psalm 115:1 is, or at least should be, our prayer. Not to us, O Lord, not to us or to anyone or anything else, for that matter, not to us, but to your name give glory.
We want God to glorify Himself, and we don’t want glory. Yet, yet, let’s be honest. We like receiving glory. Our hearts like receiving praise, and there’s something that’s good about this in the sense that it’s good to encourage and affirm one another, God’s grace in each other. And it’s good when God’s grace does this or that in and through our lives and for people to acknowledge that.
Psalm 115:1 Reminds Us of God’s Grace
But the point is exactly that. It’s God’s grace. It’s God’s love. And It’s God’s faithfulness. There is nothing good in me. Anything good in me, anything good that I have done is totally, 100% completely, not half and half, God did this, I did that. No. It’s all because of His love and His faithfulness and His grace. Yes, it all, 100% must be, should be, must be attributed to His glory.
This Verse Leads Us to Praise God
I’m convicted and just led to pray not just in my own life, but in our lives. God, rid us, we pray, of all pride, every shred of pride, every shred of remaining pride that desires in any way our name, our praise, our glory, because, God, we confess you deserve it all. You deserve it all. There is nothing good in us. There is nothing good around us that does not come from you, that you do not deserve all glory for.
God, I pray in my own life, give me a single-minded desire, a single-minded ambition for your glory alone, to glorify you alone. In a John 3:30 kind of way, may you become greater. May I become less. God, I pray that would be the cry of my heart, and not just my heart, but every single one of us. God, may you remove all pride from us. May you help us to see everything. Anything good in us comes from you, and help us then to desire your glory in everything, anything good in us for the steadfast, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness.
Glorify yourself through our lives. May the fruit of our lives be more people giving glory to you. May that be the fruit of our lives today and tomorrow, and every single thing we do. Also, may the fruit of our lives be more people giving glory to you even as we give glory to you, not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
