I will praise the name of God with song and magnify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69 verse 30
The dictionary defines magnify as both to enlarge and to praise highly; to glorify. When I think of ‘magnify’ I think of something getting bigger while your attention on other things subsequently becomes less and less.
Lately I have been reflecting on these questions.
What or who am I magnifying? What am I focusing on the most? What or who is taking precedence in my life? Am I magnifying God or am I magnifying myself? Am I focusing on my problems more than what God says in his word and the truth he is whispering in my heart? Am I focusing on only the natural and do I need to turn my eyes towards things above?
Turn my eyes upon Jesus
Turn my eyes from worthless things and give me life through your word. Psalm 119 verse 37
If I am magnifying God, my thoughts make a shift and I focus on him, on his holiness, his majesty, his splendour, his love. I start to praise him and thank him through worship and prayer. I meditate on him and his goodness and his character and I see myself as his child and I start to believe the truth of who he is and who I am in him. Subsequently earthly things and the focus on my self grows smaller.
However, if I start to magnify or focus on my problems, my inadequacies, who I am without him, worries and concerns start to enlarge until they take up all of my thinking and heart space until God gets greatly minimised in my life. It then becomes harder to believe the truth of what he says in his word as my priorities and mind are elsewhere.
More of him, less of me
He must become greater; I must become less. John 3 verse 30
John the Baptist said these words after his followers were worried that people were starting to follow Jesus more than John. However, John knew that he must step aside. He modelled humility and how to exalt God and humble ourselves before God.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4 verse 10
Author Katherine Ruonala writes in Supernatural Freedom,
‘God is thrilled when we only have eyes for him. When we are able to ignore distractions and focus exclusively on who he is. He wants us to know the intensity of the love he has for us and the capacity we have to give him Joy.’
God’s desire is to be one with us. As we draw close to God, he draws close to us. He longs for us to know who we are in him, how loved we are, and the royal inheritance we have.
In magnifying and glorifying the Lord we cannot help but change and become reflectors of his light and life.
I pray we can magnify him in our thoughts, words, and actions so he becomes a greater focus in our lives, and we naturally become more like him.