Zac Poonen preaches on the importance of living and laboring for the glory of God alone. He emphasizes that all things were created by God to bring glory to Him, not because God selfishly desires our glory, but for our highest good. Jesus exemplified seeking the Father's glory in all He did, living a life where everything was sacred and done for God's glory. Poonen highlights the distinction between spiritual service that glorifies God and soulish service that exalts self, warning against drawing attention to ourselves rather than to God. He challenges believers to examine their motives, as the value of our actions lies in why we do them, stressing the need to serve with humility and without seeking personal recognition.

To Him are all things" (Romans 11:36) God is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. And so, as all things of an eternal nature originate in Him, they find their consummation in Him too. All things were created by God to bring glory to Him. This is not because God selfishly desires our glory. He is completely self-sufficient in Himself, and there is nothing that we can offer Him that can add to His sufficiency. When He calls us to seek His glory, it is because that is the way for our own highest good. We would be self-centred and miserable otherwise. To be centred in Him is a law that God has built into creation. That law can be violated only by moral creatures with a free will. Inanimate creation joyfully obeys its Creator and glorifies Him. But Adam disobeyed that law, and we see the consequences in the misery of humanity. In the prayer that the Lord taught His disciples to pray, the very first request is, "Hallowed by Thy Name." This was the primary longing in the heart of the Lord Jesus. He prayed "Father, glorify Thy Name," and chose the way of the Cross since that was to the Father's glory (John 12:27, 28). One supreme passion governed the life of the Lord Jesus - the Father's glory. Everything He did was for the Father's glory. There were no separate sacred and secular compartments in His life. Everything was sacred. He made stools and benches for the glory of God as much as He preached and healed the sick for the glory of God. Every day was equally sacred to Him; and money spent on the necessities of daily living was as sacred as money given to God's work or to the poor. Jesus lived in perfect rest of heart at all times, because He sought only the Father's glory and cared only for His Father's approval. He lived before the face of His Father and did not care for the honour or praise of men. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, said Jesus (John 7:18). The soulish Christian, however much he may appear or pretend to be seeking the glory of God, is really, deep down, interested in his own honour. Jesus on the other hand, never sought any honour for Himself. That which originates in man's cleverness and is carried out through human ingenuity and talents, will always end in glorifying man. That which begins in the soul will only glorify the creature. But there will be nothing in heaven or in earth in the ages of eternity that will bring honour or glory to any man. Everything that survives time and enters the portals of eternity will be what was from God, through God and to God. It is the motive behind an action that gives value and merit to that action, as far as God is concerned. What we do is important, but why we do it is far more important. We have seen that Jesus waited on His Father to receive His plan, and also waited on the Father for the power to carry out that plan, so that He did all the will of His Father in the power of God. But that was not all. As we saw in the last chapter, Jesus went to prayer after some of His greatest achievements - to give the glory to His Father. He offered up the fruit of His labours as a sacrificial offering to His Father. He neither sought honour for Himself, nor received it when it was given Him (John 5:41; 8:50). When His fame spread far and wide, He retired to the mountains to glorify His Father (Luke 5:15, 16). He was determined never to touch that glory Himself. The result of such an attitude consistently held, was that at the end of Jesus' life on earth, He could honestly say, Father I have glorified You on earth (John 17:4). He had come to earth to glorify the Father as a man. He lived each day with that as His aim. He prayed earnestly that the Father alone would be glorified, whatever the cost to Him. And He finally died that the Father would be honoured and exalted and glorified on earth as He was in heaven. Paul says that in the day of testing by fire (1 Corinthians 3:13) everyone will know "WHY we have been doing the Lord's work" (1 Corinthians 4:5 - TLB). Motives will be exposed and examined by the Lord in that day. Soulish service exalts self and draws people to ourselves instead of to God. The crowds come to hear us and are impressed and come back to hear us again and honour us and speak well of us. When we leave the place, they fall back to their former spiritual condition, no better for all the preaching that they heard. The real test of a man's labour is the condition of the people to whom he ministered, after he himself is dead and gone. Then it will become evident whether his service was soulish or spiritual. All labour that draws others to ourselves will be proved to be wood, hay and straw in the final day, for it only glorified man. The ministry of Jesus was spiritual. The proof of that is seen in the fact that He left behind a number (small though it be) who also became spiritual, and not soulish. To manifest His glory, we must follow in His footsteps here. Soulish service and living are paving the way for the arrival and the worldwide acceptance of the antichrist - the totally soulish man. He will exalt himself above others and will draw crowds to himself, even using miraculous powers to do so (2 Thessalonians 2:3-10). Drawing the attention of people to ourselves and to our work is therefore of the essence of the spirit of the antichrist. To have power over the consciences of men, so that we tell them what to do and where to go, is soulish. To give advice to others is a spiritual thing to do but to exercise control over them is soulish. Jesus never compelled any of His followers to do anything. He respected the freedom of choice that God had invested man with. And so He was the servant of all men, and ministered to them instead of ordering them around. It is very easy to preach with the spirit of a ruler and a lord and not with the spirit of a servant (2 Corinthians 4:5). We can use our soul-power to impose our views on others. This results in people being brought into bondage to us. A person who is zealous and is ignorant of his own strong soul-power will not even realise that he is winning people to himself and not to Christ. The work of God is not done by human power or might but by the Holy Spirit. And one mark of the Spirit's working is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17) - perfect freedom given to each individual. Consider how a servant conducts himself in a home. He serves quietly and having done what needs to be done, withdraws into the kitchen. He does not come in with pomp and show, neither does he tell those at the table what they should do. How many are willing to serve the Lord like this? As one has said, "There is only one thing that a servant has a right to rule over, and that is over his own flesh. To the degree that he rules over his own flesh, he can lead others forward in the spiritual life. A spiritual servant serves only by the power that is given to him by God, and this power is given to him only to minister to the needs of others. If however we use that power to domineer over a person and to force him in any way, he may become discouraged and finally go his own way. The task of a servant is to work in such a way that souls come into a living connection with God Who works everything - and not into a connection with himself (1 Corinthians 12:6)." Jesus so sought the glory of God that He Himself was quite prepared to pave and prepare the way for His apostles to do something greater than He ever did, after Him (John 14:12). This greater work was, no doubt, the building of the church, with the members therein becoming one as the Father and the Son are one (John 17:21-23). During Jesus' lifetime on earth, not even two of His disciples had become one as the Father and the Son are one. They all sought their own. But after the day of Pentecost, many of His disciples have become one as He desired. This was the greater work. Jesus paved the way for others to do a greater work. He died and laid the foundation and His disciples built on that. There was no self-interest in Jesus. It did not matter to Him if someone else got the credit for what He did, provided the Father was glorified. It is this spirit that has to animate us, if we are to minister life to the church, the Body of Christ, today, and if we are to build it, to the fullness of the stature of Christ. Jesus lived so utterly and totally before the Father's face alone, that He did not care to be vindicated before those who crucified Him, after He rose from the dead. In the eyes of the world and the Jewish leaders, Jesus' ministry was a total failure. If Jesus had been soulish, He would have longed to go back and present Himself before those leaders after His resurrection to confound them and to vindicate Himself. But he did not do that. He presented Himself after the resurrection, only to those who believed on Him. The Father's time for the vindication of Jesus had not yet come - and Jesus was prepared to wait. That time has still not come. Jesus is still misunderstood in the world, and most people consider His life to have been a failure. He began life (as a man), in the ignominy of a cattle food-box and ended His life on earth in the humiliating death of the cross, with two criminals of the worst order. And that was the last that this world saw of Him. Jesus was quite prepared to appear a failure before men, provided the Father was glorified. He did not live or serve, to be admired by men, and therefore one day the Father will vindicate Him publicly with great glory and honour; and in that day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord - but even that will be for the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11). And so the third question that we must ask ourselves is: AM I LIVING AND LABOURING FOR THE GLORY OF GOD ALONE?