“Love is doing what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest joy. What will enthrall the beloved this way is the glory of God. Love means doing all we can, at whatever cost to ourselves, to help people be enthralled with the glory of God. When they are, they are satisfied and God is glorified. Therefore loving people and glorifying God are one” (John Piper).

We love God in part by how we love people. If we say we love God whom we have not seen, as the verse goes, but do not love the people in our lives that we can see, we show that we don’t really love God. Basically, we lie.

The best way to love others is to bring out the best in them. That’s what God does. He brings out the best in us. So when we lead people to places where they most glorify God, that’s where they find their deepest satisfaction. I love how John Piper says that the chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever.

God’s glory is our greatest good. People that don’t know God can hardly give Him glory or glorify Him through their lives. It seems that when people fall in love with Jesus, they become their best selves and God is honored and both we and them are most satisfied.

I think it was also John Piper who said that the chief aim of the church is worship. Evangelism exists because in so many places worship doesn’t. People can’t worship what they don’t know and who they have never met. When the Church fulfills the Great Commission, worship is birthed in places where it wasn’t before and God gets greater glory as our love is tangibly expressed in sharing the gospel.

Lord, help us to love You well by loving others well and always pointing them to Jesus as their greatest good for the glory of God. May as may people as possible come to find their greatest satisfaction in glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Amen.