ALL FOR THE GLORY // S04E08 (EPISODE 51)

What does it mean to do it all for glory of God? It may be easy when life’s flowing well, but what about when you’re utterly confused why this is even happening to you? What about in the face of injustice? Pain? This week, we discuss the connotations of a famous verse within 1 Corinthians 10.

QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:

• Are you defending things that don’t bring God glory?
• Are you settling for the temporary?
• Are you living for God’s glory?

VERSES FROM ALL FOR THE GLORY

Corinthians 10:31-33, Romans 8:28, 1 Corinthians 10, Peter 4:11

QUOTES FROM ALL FOR THE GLORY

“Do not waste your time, defending things that don’t bring glory to God. If you’re going to indulge in them, indulge in them, but do yourself a favor and don’t add denial to the list. Don’t defend them.”

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast,  S04E08 (EPISODE 51)

“I don’t want my own path anymore. I want the path that God gives me, the path that leads me to the path of righteousness.”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast,  S04E08 (EPISODE 51)

TRANSCRIPT

Shea: Hey, I’m Shea.

Michelle: And I’m Michelle. And this is The Pantry Podcast and you’re listening to an episode from Season Four, Unnaturally Nourished, where we’re talking about how God nourishes us in ways that the world just can’t understand.

Shea: Shout-out to Warcry Network,

Michelle: The Christian Podcasters Association,

Shea: Eternity Ready Radio,

Michelle: And the Spark Collective. Check out ThePantryPodcast.com to support us by buying our awesome Merch, sending in prayer requests, and figuring out how you can connect with us and some of our awesome guests.

Shea: Hey. Hi. I am excited. And you know what? I’m going to tell a reason for this it’s Valentine’s day. We’re prerecording this. So I’m just going to throw that out there because I love the girl I’m sitting here across from you. Don’t always get the opportunity to sit and just talk and you go, you got life going on, you got little sea running around. You’ve got work, you’ve got my word. You got ministry work. You got all of these things that are awesome, but this is where I can sit, look you in the eyes and just have that moment of time when Lou, our headphones are on, the microphones are off. And like, I can’t hear nothing else. It’s just like, hello, hello, audio blinders, which are headphones, you know, but they weren’t.  

Shea: Right. But tonight’s episode, we’re going to be talking about all for the glory, bringing a couple of different perspectives, a couple of different thoughts. I would like to just start off, you know, I think it’s always great just to start off with the verse, get right to it. But I think the bottom line, when you see all this, it’s just whatever it is, give God the glory. First Corinthians 10:31-33 says, therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, I love that part. Do all to the glory of God. Give no offense either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved. See, I liked that part, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, you know, when we sit in that glory, when we sit in there and we lift God above everything else, we fall into a position of humility and we fall into a position of servitude.  

Shea: And so when we’re giving God the glory, it’s going to lift us up in ways that we could never understand. CS Lewis says like this. He says, he who has God and everything else has no more than he who has got it. Only that’s powerful. CS Lewis come on. High five, CS Lewis.That just shines light on God. I could be a billionaire and have God, you know. You know, I really didn’t have God or I could be the poorest dude on the street and have God. And yet here we are in the same kingdom position because everything will fade and wither away and it will be you and God.  

Michelle: Yeah, yeah. Even as a kid, I would tell my mom, you know, God’s the winning team, the society I grew up in, man, it’s mucky with things that will pull you away and challenge your faith that he can provide in all of these ways. Because you know, things like be rational, be logical, those things on their own aren’t dangerous. But when they continuously are pulling you away from looking to Christ, relying on Christ and trusting in Christ, thinking that the provision from God can only come if you secure some worldly provision, first, that’s a dangerous, slippery slope. And that often takes us away and out of God’s plan for our lives, right? Because he didn’t plant, like, let’s say David, he put God first went out there with a Slingshot and he did his business. But what if he had gone out there in that two big armor and hadn’t declared God at all, what would have happened that giant would have wrecked him?  

Michelle: Because it wasn’t about the weapon he had physically. It was about the faith behind that thing. And God using it to show only God could have done it. So it’s important for us to make sure that we realize that doing it all for the glory of God, isn’t just like, Oh, you know, cause that’s good brownie points that makes me a good Christian or you know, God will be happy with me. No, that is the key. If you’re not doing it for God’s glory, you are, even though you may be a believer, you’re going to find yourself in a lot of predicaments where you’re going to be questioning, where has God and why did you let me happen to this? And it’s like, well, I had a Slingshot for you and you decide to put on this whole, this other dude’s armor. So yeah. Where was I? I was there and you were ignoring me.  

Shea: And it was like, it’s too heavy. See wisdom. And so we understand that people put things on and tested out, but look, God perspective, let wisdom rain in your, in your decision. Right. And make the right choices. He was like, Hm I’ve killed lions bears. I like he’s practice. Right. He knew that with God. Like he says, I, I am here with God. He tells the Philistine like yo giant. It ain’t me it was God, like you were saying, it’s like, and that’s just amazing that, that faith, you know, that faith produced wisdom and that wisdom is what made him make the right choice. Right. He could have picked the armor and took it like a God. Like I’m a warrior because I mean, look, come on, man. I was, I was a soldier. And like, we get new stuff.

Shea: That too. But you also have some really cool stuff. I like the more little sticky stuff you got to put on your little vest and all that, you know, it was like, what more amo carriers, grenades, you know? And it’s like, it’s like, make sure, but see David was wise. He said, no, no, no, no, all that fancy little stuff and a sword, he could barely handle, you know, but then wise God lets him kill the giant with the giant sword. He knocks him down and it cuts his head off with a guy sword, you know, it’s like, wow. So he, God used it. See, God will use things in our lives. Romans 8:28. You know, it’s all for those who love. But it brings him glory it’s for his purpose.

Shea: But then we find ourselves on that road. It’s it’s we constantly find ourselves drifting towards the more you become mature and the more you trust and the more faith you you’ll apply, the more you start to see that you see the drift. It’s kind of like, so I remember most of my life, I woke up and saw it and anyone out there understands that feeling of the morning after. And you’re like, Oh, what did I do? And the shame actually that comes with that. If, if, if there’s anything in there, which there was in me. So now instead of the morning after it’s like the night of, well, maybe I shouldn’t go to the club, you know, and it might just start out. I went to the club, maybe I shouldn’t drink. And then eventually it comes up to what do I need the club for?  

Michelle: Yeah. When we first started talking about a podcast, which was this time, last year, funny enough, and what we had just done, which was we canceled Netflix. And we’ve talked about that on here a lot, but honestly it’s huge. It’s, it’s a, it’s a huge pivotal point. I heard this with celebrities, multiple interviews that they don’t actually see a lot of movies. They don’t actually do a lot of these. They don’t engage in a lot of these types of entertainment. We all do because they’re too busy living life and, and making the stuff we consume, right. They’re too busy doing that. And so if you look at some of their resumes, it’s really impressive. They know how to do a ton of stuff other than acting because they pick it up along the way. They know how to sword fight for real. They know how to put a gun together. For real, they know how to fly a helicopter for real resumes, right. They know how to make a resume. I can help you with that by the way, previous career path.  

Michelle: But, I realized when were like, that was one of the earliest things. I was like, we sit here and binge on Netflix and we’re talking about how do we even have time for a podcast? And one day I turned a sham light cause I had done the math and I’m not good at math, but I knew enough math to be like week 21 hours a week of Netflix, three hours a night. And then we watch Netflix till it’s time for us to go to sleep. And I’m like, that’s a lot of time for us to do stuff other than sit here and watch someone else living out their dream on screen. And I was like, if a celebrity can do that for the world and for their own wants and desires, how much more can a believer do that for the glory of God?  

Michelle: And I realized he had been providing us all of this time that we had been me and Shea, I’m not gonna speak for anybody else. We’d been stewarding it poorly. We’d been escaping the world because all day we had been of the world and in the world trying to do the rat race of the world and fit God, serving God in as a lot we did. But it’s like still, it was not. We needed to disengage in escape at the end of the day. I know what we cut that out because that was all our personal biggest time consumption outside of anything else. And we started a podcast. We started diving into the word more. When we do watch TV, it’s, there’s a lot more God references, biblical references, talking and fellowshipping with believers around the world on zoom. I mean, life gets real interesting, real quick.  

Michelle: When you are about your father’s business, you don’t have to worry that your life you’re not going to have the provision. Cause I can tell you countless times we’ve been given the provision to do the things, not that we want to do, not the extra stuff. No, but exactly what he has planned. And it’s interesting and it’s exciting. That’s why Shea is always excited. At the beginning of every episode, y’all, he’s not lying. This is an exciting, like things are always like the twist and turns of God, even when there for the moment scary or uncomfortable, or even sometimes disappointing in the moment because of our expectations, it leads you ultimately down this road, you can’t ride it yourself, but it’s a whole lot better than the one you can write for yourself.  

Shea: I don’t want my own path anymore. How will the path that God gives me the path of righteousness. Right. And I know that sounds so like cliche, Christian, right. But also depends on the path that you’ve walked. And I heard it so well on that interview. Right. And it was, a girl named beloved and she said that we won’t have a testimony without the tests. And I know that the world seems very delicious. Sometimes. I know because it’s designed that way. The world was designed to capture our thoughts. The enemy came in pretty hot and heavy, right from the beginning with one little sanity. And that thing expanded out to what we see in the world today. And every, we turn our heads, we see like a multiplier to that.  

Shea: But for some reason it’s just so attracting, right? It’s like, it’s like this hypnotic dance that’s being done in order to take us away from, from our creator, our God,sometimes he throws in wrenches or wrenches are thrown it. You know, that, that could go either way, depending on how you believe this. We’re not going to get into the debates about, you know, who causes it, you know, but it’s been, it’s it’s happened. You know, you can’t take that fact away and I know that in my own life, when I say this, these paths that we had put ourselves on or that we chose, because I mean, it is my choice. It’s it was my choice. Any one of those days to turn a different way than the way that I was going. But shame drove this train when I was a child, I was molested. Now that drove me into a path because of my own guilt, my own shame. And I knew of God. And the more I knew of God, the more shameful I felt, the more I thought I could hide in the garden, like Adam and Eve, you know, hiding from God. Watch, once you get to the relationship of that your life and you start to really know truth. You’re like, I was just ignoring you.  

Shea: I was running. And, and, and really when you really look back at it, it’s like, but if I go to church, I can’t go to the club, but that’s later life. But I mean, it did set a precedent in my life and it set me on a path and a path that I chose, I chose to do the things that I did. I chose to, you know, go farther and, and, and chase after all of these worldly type of gods, because they were desirable, they filled a void that was inside of me. And as, and when you look back, it’s amazing history, you know, it’s like history tells us a lot. When you look back at your life, really don’t look at it shamefully or, or whatever. But look at it, you’ll see God perk up or you’ll see where you were just being you.  

Shea: Cause I did eventually in high school, you know, receive Christ. But of course, when you don’t feel worthy, then you just turn and run. Like I was talking about. But when I looked back was like this urging, come on, come on. I’m thinking condemnation and all this other stuff, or I’m thinking of the world, like how delicious it is as like, but if I go to church, you start talking. It’s like, you’re working out this problem in your head. How are you going to have to give up this world? But see we’ve undercut ourselves. We’ve undercut ourselves in this thought. We think that these delicious things are like the ultimate, like, I don’t know. It’s like the whatever pie y’all like, I’m just gonna leave it there with some big old whatever kind of ice cream or whatever dessert. It’s like that’s what’s in front of me. Right?

Shea: Just joking. Y’all this is supposed to be serious conversations as Christians though. That’s another, that’s another story for another day have fun. But CS Lewis kind of like brings this thought. You might have to rewind this a couple of times a year, but it’s so good. He says, “it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambitions. When infinite joy is offered us like an arrogant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum, because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased”.

Michelle: Like it makes me think of a story from when I worked in an office and we had, I was in market. I was the marketer, right. So I got this holiday. Thank you for ordering our customized chocolate. So it was a box of chocolates and I’m walking around the office, giving it to everybody in every office. And then I get to one office and a coworker’s like, no, thank you. I only eat the best chocolate or something, something. And in the moment I was like, Oh, okay. Like, so you bougie though. Like I was just like, she must’ve seen something on my face and explained that like, I think either her husband’s from Belgium or she’s had access to some of the world’s best chocolates because her of her husband, you know, it makes total sense to me. Now, if you don’t have to, if you’re not starving, why would you waste your time on calories and sugar?  

Michelle: When a stock going to satisfy you because you’ve tasted better. Right. And in the, in the worldly sense, it’s like, Oh, okay. You know, whatever. But from a God perspective, the more you go out into that deep water, faith and you’re, and you’re spending time with God and you’re tasting and you’re seeing, and you’re experiencing these, this infinite joy then yes, turned down the Hershey kisses because trust there’s better chocolate out there. And if you’re like really about to defend that thing, that, you know, if you dissect a forest, like you’re like it ain’t godly. Maybe it makes me feel good for a second. Maybe it’s a good thing that my, our family sits around and has a good time with, for once in a while we laugh we’re together. Instead of apart, do not waste your time, defending things that don’t bring God glory.  

Michelle: If you’re going to indulge in them, indulge in them, but do yourself a favor and don’t add denial to the list. Don’t defend them. And it brings me to the verse because I read all of 1 Corinthians 10, cause you’re supposed to, when you, when you have a verse, right, you’re supposed to read the whole thing and all the context around it. First Corinthians 10, 12, where it says, if you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. When we get down into that Valley, we quickly that world-class chocolate that you just had. Well now suddenly that Hershey kiss looked pretty good a second ago. You knew better, but now you just need that fix. And in first Corinthians 10, it’s walking through the lessons of idolatrous, Israel that even the bad is for God’s glory. So in those hard times, we can’t crave. 

Michelle: What is evil fall into sinful lusts complain, test God or worship idols because of our own bitterness, resentment, confusion, or desperation for distraction. All of those are understandable. I feel for you. And I’ve been there, especially if you’re not the one who took yourself there, it was someone else’s choices that puts you down in that Valley. You want so desperately to get back on that mountain, even if it’s just, if, even to kind of foolish, like I’m okay, just on that Hill. I’ll just stand on this rock just to be a little bit higher, please. And we need to remember in those times that you could, you could settle for a temporary fix that pulls you away and distracts you from God’s will in the situation. And then suddenly you’re asking yourself, God, why did you let me get to this place? Well, again, you put the armor on and Kevin ANSEP picking up the Slingshot.  You’ve left God’s side in the Valley when you need them most right. Just wait, be paid, await in the lower, wait on the Lord because he has more provision coming. He has a deliverance strategy. He has a redemption plan for everything. And we can trust that that world-class chocolate is it’s in transit. We don’t have to take it upon ourselves and find that idol to worship. Find that person that has a solution. We don’t have to do any of that. We can still trust on God. He’s not betraying us. When we go down there, there’s a plan for it.  

Shea: Don’t go back to the Hershey’s. Don’t even go towards the Godiva with the divine. And then I started thinking I should make a divine chocolate but you know, I’m thinking about that. And as I’m hearing this mountain, right, isn’t it amazing that like we’ll get up on the mountain and it’s like, we start going down and, and we’re supposed to rest in that, in that drop. Right. But we turn around and we start trying to crawl back up the mountain that we just came from. But God is like, hold on, hold on. You’re going to hit this Valley. And then I’m going to take you up to a greater mountain. Right. And in that, but see we’re resting. I like what you said, we’re resting, but we’re moving. We’re moving. We’re moving towards God. Yeah. We’re abiding in God. We’re seeking God. We’re we’re we’re we’re walking with God. It’s a movement. It’s like, it’s like, we’re never perpetually still we’re perpetually moving. Yeah. And I love that, but you can rest in that move. 

Michelle: It reminds me of the car accident story with your mom. When you, when you realized that I’m telling your story for you, but when you realized that there you were looking in the rear view and you saw the car coming at you and you’re like, they are not going to stop. And you turn to your mom and we’re like, we’re going to get hit, relax or something. You said something amazing in milliseconds and your mom just like relaxed and then the collision. And because there was no shock, surprise or tense up because it was expected that there was going to be an impact. Y’all walked away from it. Don’t sit there. I’ve done this paranoid. Like when, when am I going to fall over? When, when am I going to have to go down again? Don’t don’t because I do that. You know, my first blog post was about how I often think God’s going to take it all away.  

Michelle: He’s going to take the things I love most. Cause then I’ll grow more as a Christian. Right. And I mean, yeah, I’m sure if you keep with Christ, you’ll always grow stronger. But, but you can’t live in this perpetual fear of the fall and I won’t even use the fall, but of the decline before the next inclined, just know it’s not a betrayal. It’s not necessarily because you failed him. Disappointed him, trespassed against him. Paul went to prison and got beat up a lot of times too, because he did exactly what God wanted him to do. And that was the whole point. So sometimes it’s important for us to remember that it’s all for his glory, meaning it’s all, he’s got it all worked into his plan. And as long as we’re in his plan, not trying to write our own plan, it’ll make sense, right?  

Michelle: He won’t have to keep doing plan X plan Z with you. Cause you’re stubborn and hard headed, you know, but we have to remember that. Sometimes we define it as a Valley. He has something for you there if you choose to accept it. And so that’s the unnatural nourishment portion because in the world, these things, these, these valleys, these struggles, they’re natural poisons, they’re natural toxins with God, they can be supplements or he’ll make a supplement out of them. They themselves might be utterly tragic, but there is something he can redeem out of it that will sustain you, carry you forward, strengthen you, let you be of help to someone else. And so the biggest thing is don’t get bitter that you’re there. Don’t get mad at God that you’re there just kind of  

obsess over what he wants you to be doing there and what your next  

Shea: That’s really good advice without God. It’s nothing without God or nothing, he can provide and make life comfortable or he can provide. And life is tough. There’s people who are completely faithful that are like 100. They go through challenges, right? Hard challenges. But when we trust, we’re fed, you know, earlier talking about eating and drinking, right? Once you taste of the bread and you drink of the cup and it really solidifies into you, what that means, that nourishment, right? That, that unnatural nourishment, you don’t want to go back. You want to keep getting better. You want to keep in so many ways, pleasing your father. Not in this way. I was like, I’m always not good at that, but I’m saying we want to please him because we want to be with him. You know? And when we’re in that and we’re like serving him, we’re turned to him.  

Shea:  I think it closes out though with a little thought from a verse because I love my verses. It’s the it’s it’s it’s food. It’s sustenance reading through the Bible, the thing Michelle and I read through the Bible y’all every year and every year, the word speaks in season. It’s that nourishment as why I love versus so much, but this one really brings it home for us in this idea that we’re thinking about as first Peter 4:11, it says, whoever speaks as one who speaks Oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies in order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever amen. It’s experiential, this glory and this dominion become truth. It’s not just something that’s spoken about or read about in the Bible. You start to experience it in the depths of your soul.  

Michelle: Amen. Amen. I love talking to you, but I mean, we love talking to each other. We also would love to talk to you guys. So we are putting something together on Wednesday, April 7th. It’s going to be in the evening Eastern standard time. I think that’s GMT minus five. Join us on zoom for a live chat with y’all get to know you pray with you, build you up. Just talk about the Lord, go on over to the pantry podcast.com/zoom to sign up, to get notifications, get that link when it is live. So until next time. Bye. Bye. 

KEYWORDS: GOD BE THE GLORY, ETERNAL LIFE, PATH OF RIGHTOUSNESS, GROWING AS CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIAN LIFE, PODCASTS FOR WOMEN, PODCASTS FOR FAITH, PODCASTS FOR CHRISTIANS, CHRISTIAN PODCASTS TO FOLLOW.