When God touches your life, Satan immediately comes to steal it away. (Mark 4:15.) He doesn’t want you to keep whatever it was the Lord gave you—a revelation, a blessing, a healing, for instance. The Enemy does this by trying to get you to quit glorifying God as God. If you stop glorifying God as God—and stop glorifying what He’s done in your life—then you’ll lose the manifestation of that revelation, blessing, healing, or whatever else was manifested. It’ll seem like your joy and peace are diminishing. But if you don’t quit glorifying God and what He’s done in your life, you’ll never lose it—and it’ll increase.
So then, what does it mean to “glorify” God?
When I first ran across this, I looked it up in the Strong’s concordance. The Greek word used in Romans 1:21 for glorify means “to render (or esteem) glorious.”1 That didn’t help me very much.
So I looked up both render and esteem in the dictionary. It was when I saw the definition for esteem that God opened my eyes to this truth. Esteem means “to value, to prize, or to reverence.”2
When God does something in your life, you place a value upon it, but then Satan immediately comes against that value and competes for it. He tries to steal from you the worth and value you’ve placed on the things of God. This happens to everyone.
The same thing will happen with this teaching. Some people who read this will receive it. Others won’t. But one way or another, you are placing a value on what you’re learning.
When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
1 Thessalonians 2:13
Some readers will say, “This is God speaking to me” and others will conclude “That’s just Andrew.” Then you’ll place a value on these truths and they’ll affect your life—or not—accordingly.
You place a value on everything that comes into your life. The devil comes immediately to attack the value you place on God, His Word, and the manifestation of what He’s done—and doing—in your life.
Let’s say the Lord speaks to you and reveals His unconditional love. You experience and feel that love saying, “God loves me! Almighty God loves me!” You receive the peace, joy, and other benefits that revelation and experience bring, but tomorrow the devil will agitate someone at work to come over and dump on you. They’ll tell you what an absolute zero you are, criticizing your performance or something else the devil knows will bother you. Do you know what’s happening? The Enemy is competing for the value you placed on God and His love.
You can go to church and get so blessed and happy. Then you go home and someone jumps all over your case. Satan is trying to steal your joy. Here’s what God says about you and here’s the opposite. It’s like a seesaw according to the value you place on it. When one side is up, the other side is down—and vice versa. If you value what God says, then you have to devalue what others say. Like a seesaw, you can’t have both sides up at the same time. “God loves me. Not only does He love me, He likes me. He’s pleased with me. I’m full of joy unspeakable and full of glory!”
But when the criticism and opposition come, will you hold on to what God has said and done, or will you start honoring, prizing, and valuing the acceptance of those people equal to or above God? If you let their word have power and increase, then the value you place on God’s Word and what He’s done in your life will decrease. You’ll start losing the manifestation of joy, peace, and victory that revelation gave you. It wasn’t God who quit transmitting it, but you who quit receiving. You allowed something else to occupy the position in your life that was meant for God.
You place a value on everything that comes against you. No one else can. Nobody else can dictate the worth you place on something in your life. It’s your choice.
Your spouse, child, or boss says something to you that upsets you. Let’s say it just really ticked you off. However, if they said the exact same words to me, it would have a different effect. Why? I don’t value their opinion the way you do.
“But I’m supposed to value my spouse, child, or boss’s opinion.” Yes, you should value them more than I do—but in a relative sense. The Lord said:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:26
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Matthew 10:37
Your love for even your immediate family ought to pale in comparison to your love for Jesus. The contrast between the worth and value you place on God and others should be as different as love and hate. Of course, you should value certain people who are closer to you more than I do. But in comparison to God and what He’s done in your life, you ought to place such a value and worth upon Him that nothing and no one ever competes. However, this isn’t the way most Christians operate.
Do you glorify the things of God more than the things of this world? Is the difference so small that I’d have to use a magnifying glass to see which you truly value the most? It ought to be obvious. Compared to how you esteem God, you should disesteem—decrease the worth and value on—everything and everyone else.
We’ve actually become codependent on everyone and everything else except God. If your mate were to leave you, would you fall apart like a two-dollar suitcase? I agree that it’s God’s best for your marriage to be healed and made whole. Of course, the Lord wants to move in that area of your life. But what if your spouse doesn’t cooperate? You need to make a commitment and say, “God, You are so much greater than my mate. If things don’t work out and they leave, I won’t miss a stride. I’ll keep praising, loving, and serving You with all my heart—even if everyone forsakes me. You’re awesome!”
Moses’ wife left him for a year or two. Zipporah took off when they were on their way down to Egypt, but Moses just kept moving forward with the Lord. (Ex. 18:2.) The plagues were released, the children of Israel were delivered, and the Red Sea parted. All this happened while he was separated from his wife.
Some people think, “Well, brother, I believe I’m supposed to love and value God, but you can’t praise Him while going through a divorce.” Sure you can.
A partner of mine in Charlotte, North Carolina, used to have me in to his business each year. He’d tell his employees, “The clock is running. You listen to this guy for as long as he wants to talk.” Then I’d just share with them the goodness of God. I did this for many years.
While in the break room after I had spoken once, a certain lady came over to talk to me. She was an alcoholic who had tried to kill herself. She’d slit her wrists and wound up in the hospital. She was going through her third or fourth divorce and was very poor. Everything in her life was depressing and discouraging.
She told me, “Andrew, I’m not a Christian like you and Chip (my friend, the business owner), but I know that prayer works. I want prayer for my marriage.” Then she broke down and started to cry. She told me it was her third or fourth marriage, and that her husband had filed for a divorce. If she got divorced again, she didn’t know if she could make it. So she wanted me to pray for her marriage.
I stopped her and asked, “Now let me make sure I heard you right. You aren’t a Christian and you know it.”
“That’s right.”
“If you were to die right now, you would go straight to hell.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you want me to pray for your marriage and not your salvation?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Lady, do you realize that after you’ve burned in hell for a thousand years, you won’t give a rip whether you were ever married or not? Who cares about your marriage—you need to be born again!”
She responded, “You know what? You’re right!” So I prayed with her and she was born again.
I’m not saying that God isn’t concerned about your marriage, but you must look at it in terms of its relative worth. Compared to eternity, marriage is nothing. It’s all about the value you place on things.
Some people place so much value on their marriage, career, and other people’s acceptance that it honestly competes for the worth they’ve placed on the things of God. If that’s you, you need to make a decision and say, “Lord, there is nothing that could even remotely tempt me to ever decrease the value I place on You and what You’ve done in my life.” Then you need to magnify and glorify God, and disesteem everything else.
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1,2
Notice the phrase “despising the shame.” The Greek word rendered despising literally means “to disesteem.”3 It’s the exact opposite of esteeming, glorifying, magnifying, valuing, and prizing. Jesus disesteemed the shame associated with what He had to go through.
You cannot truly glorify God and everything else at the same time. It’s like that seesaw we talked about. Both ends can’t be up at the same time. You must esteem one and disesteem everything else. Jesus disesteemed the shame associated with His crucifixion. He intentionally minimized and shrunk the cost.
That’s not the way most of us function. If you or I had been called on by God to suffer crucifixion, we probably would have immediately looked at the shame, cost, and pain. We would have valued our own life, peace, and security in such a way that we wouldn’t have been able to value what God called us to do.
But Jesus had already disesteemed His own life. (Phil. 2:5–8.) He viewed everything else as worthless compared to what God had said and done.
Paul did the same:
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.
Philippians 3:7,8
You place a value on everything in your life. You are the one who esteems what’s important to you. Paul said, “I placed a high value on knowing Christ and disesteemed everything else as if it were dung.” That’s a strong statement.
Most Christians can’t say that—which is the reason we can’t do what Paul did. It’s also why we don’t have the same joy. Paul wrote the book of Philippians while in prison. Yet, it’s his happiest book. He used the words “joy,” “rejoice,” and “rejoicing” a total of seventeen times in just four chapters. Paul was praising God and rejoicing from jail.
If you were thrown in prison this evening, would you be singing and praising the Lord at midnight? Probably not. You place so much value and worth on your life, freedom, and possessions. You’ve put so much value on things that are unimportant. Your life is important, but compared to God it’s worth nothing. You need to place a relative worth on your life. As long as you are the center of your universe, you are always going to be upset when someone rubs you the wrong way. If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you make a very small package.
Paul had a different value system. He actually struggled with whether to stay here or go to heaven.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain…For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
Philippians 1:21,23,24
Paul didn’t count his life here as anything. He’s the one who placed this value on it.
You’re the one who places value on everything that comes into your life. I remember climbing a trail on Pikes Peak with a friend of mine. He started telling me about a mutual friend who had said some very negative things about both of us. I told him I didn’t want to hear it. We had discussed this before, and I didn’t care to hear the latest thing this guy had criticized me over. My friend became quiet for a while and then asked, “Why doesn’t what he says about you bother you the way his criticism of me bothers me?” I answered, “It’s because I don’t value his opinion of me the way you value his opinion of you.” It’s all about the value you place on things.
The reason you begin to lose the revelation, blessing, and benefit of what God has said and done is that you’ve placed value on so many other things instead of Him. These other things that are important to you are sapping your time, energy, and attention. Due to this, what the Lord has done in your life has diminished over time. It’s not because God changed His attitude toward you and quit giving. It’s because you’ve let something else occupy that place of importance in your life that was meant for God alone.
