Heaven on Earth
C. Kingsley, M.A. 1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1. Worth considering, indeed, is this command; for though it has been in the Bible for eighteen hundred years, it is seldom read, seldomer understood, and still more seldom put into practice. This is the especial curse of our day, that religion does not mean, as it used, the being like God and showing forth God's glory; but the art of saving our own miserable souls from hell, and getting God's wages without doing God's work, as if that was anything but selfishness. And therefore it is that people have forgotten what God's glory is. 2. It is a wonder, indeed, that we are saved from hell, much more raised to heaven; and yet the more we think of it the less wonder we shall find it. God has done for sinful men only just what was to be expected from such unutterable generosity as His is. And recollecting this, we shall begin to forget self and look at God; and in thinking of Him we shall get to worshipping Him. 3. This is what we must try at — to find out what God is: and has He not shown us what He is? He who knows Christ knows God; and that knowledge will help us to show forth God's glory. He is His own glory. As you say of any very excellent man, you have but to know him to honour him; or of any very beautiful woman, you have but to see her to love her; so men have but to see and know God to love and honour Him. 4. When we delight to honour our Father we shall try to make every one honour Him. Now nothing is so infectious as example. If you wish your neighbours to see what Jesus Christ is like, let them see what He can make you like. One man who does not put his religion on with his Sunday coat, but wears it for his working dress, and lets the thought of God grow into and through him till everything he says and does becomes religious, that man is worth a thousand sermons — he is a living gospel, he is the image of God. 5. Would not such a life be a heavenly life? We should then be sitting in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and having our conversation in heaven. We are in heaven now — if we had but faith to see it. Get rid of those carnal, heathen notions about heaven, which tempt men to fancy that after having misused this place for a whole life, they are to fly away when they die, like swallows in autumn, to some place where they are to be very happy. Heaven is not a mere place. All places are heaven if you will be heavenly in them. Heaven is where God is and Christ is; and hell is where God is not and Christ is not. (C. Kingsley, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. WEB: Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.