Zambia Hunt

Human nature instinctively seeks glory for itself. It reminds me of the story of two ducks and a frog who worked together to migrate. The frog bit onto a stick, and each duck took an end in its beak. As they flew over a farm, the farmer looked up in amazement and said, “Well, who thought of that?” The frog couldn’t resist and opened his mouth to say “I did!” – with predictable results.

Children show this tendency with refreshing honesty. My daughter Ashlyn when she was a little girl once declared, “Daddy, I’m the best singer in the world.” Another time, when I complimented her coloring, she replied without looking up, “I know.” This desire for recognition starts early and runs deep.

The Problem with Glory-Seeking

When we grasp for glory, we rob ourselves of two precious opportunities: the chance to glorify Christ and the privilege of sharing His gospel. God is crystal clear about this: “I am the LORD, that is My name; And My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 42:8). He created us specifically for His glory (Isaiah 43:7), and He’s jealous of that honor (Isaiah 48:11).

Yet how easily we steal God’s glory. When someone says, “He is such a clever boy!” we respond, “Thank you, he takes after me.” When they admire our facilities, we say, “Well, we’ve worked hard, and God has honored our stand on the Word.” We claim accomplishments came from our own power (1 Corinthians 4:7) or our own spirituality (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

Reflecting Rather Than Absorbing

Consider what happened at the Beautiful Gate in Jerusalem. A man lame from birth had just been dramatically healed. The crowd was amazed – the text uses three different words to describe their reaction: they were astonished, filled with wonder and admiration, and fixed their eyes with absolute attention on Peter and John (Acts 3:1-10).

But the apostles immediately redirected this attention. They were common fishermen with no inherent power to heal. As Jesus had said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Paul would later express this reality: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

We’re meant to be like mirrors, reflecting glory to its source. Imagine someone seeing the brilliant noon sun reflected in a mirror and complimenting the mirror on its brightness. How absurd! The mirror merely reflects; it produces no light of its own.

God deliberately chooses “foolish things to confound the wise” and “weak things to confound the mighty” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). He puts His treasure in “earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).

The Power of Redirected Glory

When we refuse to grasp at glory, something remarkable happens – the gospel takes center stage. Peter and John demonstrated this perfectly. They confronted their audience with hard truths: “You delivered up God’s ambassador, you denied Jesus before Pilate, you chose a murderer instead of the Holy One, you killed the Prince of life” (Acts 3:13-15).

This wasn’t comfortable messaging, but as John MacArthur notes, “All truly Biblical preaching must follow his example and render men guilty before God. That is the necessary foundation of the gospel message. Only those who see themselves as sinners will recognize their need for a Savior.”

They called for repentance – not just feeling sorry for sin, but feeling sorry enough to quit. This call echoes through Scripture, from Jeremiah 8:4-5 to John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-2) to Jesus Himself (Matthew 4:17).

But they also offered hope. They promised that sins would be “blotted out” – completely erased (Acts 3:19). As one director of a large mental institution in England told John Stott, “I could send half my patients home tomorrow if they only could find forgiveness.” The Scriptures affirm this complete forgiveness: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

The Choice Before Us

Every day presents us with choices about glory. When good things happen through us, will we absorb the praise or reflect it to its source? When people are amazed by what God does, will we point them to ourselves or to the Savior?

The song says it well: “To God be the glory, great things He has done. So loved He the world that He gave us His Son. Who yielded His life an atonement for sin, and opened the life-gate that all may go in!”

The question isn’t whether God’s work in our lives will amaze people – it will. The question is whether that amazement will terminate on us or be redirected to the One who deserves all glory. In the end, we have to choose: will we grasp at glory for ourselves, or will we let our lives become windows through which others see Christ?