For you to consider this morning, friends, a quote from the most important human influence (Jonathan Edwards) on the most important human influence on my life (John Piper). On the relationship between the glory of God and our happiness:
“God in seeking his glory seeks the good of his creatures, because the emanation of his glory…implies the…happiness of his creatures. And in communicating his fullness for them, he does it for himself, because their good, which he seeks, is so much in union and communion with himself. God is their good. Their excellency and happiness is nothing but the emanation and expression of God’s glory. God, in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself, and in seeking himself, i.e. himself diffused…he seeks their glory and happiness. Thus it is easy to conceive how God should seek the good of the creature…even his happiness, from a supreme regard to himself; as his happiness arises from…the creature’s exercising a supreme regard to God . . . in beholding God’s glory, in esteeming and loving it, and rejoicing in it.
God’s respect to the creature’s good, and his respect to himself, is not a divided respect; but both are united in one, as the happiness of the creature aimed at is happiness in union with himself.”
