It is a duty to make the most of ourselves, but only for God’s sake. _Jer. 45:5_—“_seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not!_” But it is nowhere forbidden us to seek great things for God. Rather we are to “_desire earnestly the greater gifts_” (_1 Cor. 12:31_). Self-realization as well as self-expression is native to humanity. Kant: “Man, and with him every rational creature, is an end in himself.” But this seeking of his own good is to be subordinated to the higher motive of God’s glory. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate may consist wholly in motive. The latter lives for self, the former for God. Illustrate by the young man in Yale College who began to learn his lessons for God instead of for self, leaving his salvation in Christ’s hands. God requires self-renunciation, taking up the cross, and following Christ, because the first need of the sinner is to change his centre. To be self-centered is to be a savage. The struggle for the life of others is better. But there is something higher still. Life has dignity according to the worth of the object we install in place of self. Follow Christ, make God the center of your life,—so shall you achieve the best; see Colestock, Changing Viewpoint, 113-123. George A. Gordon, The New Epoch for Faith, 11-13—“The ultimate view of the universe is the religious view. Its worth is ultimately worth for the supreme Being. Here is the note of permanent value in Edwards’s great essay on The End of Creation. The final value of creation is its value for God.... Men are men in and through society—here is the truth which Aristotle teaches—but Aristotle fails to see that society attains its end only in and through God.” Hovey, Studies, 65—“To manifest the glory or perfection of God is therefore the chief end of our existence. To live in such a manner that his life is reflected in ours; that his character shall reappear, at least faintly, in ours; that his holiness and love shall be recognized and declared by us, is to do that for which we are made. And so, in requiring us to glorify himself, God simply requires us to do what is absolutely right, and what is at the same time indispensable to our highest welfare. Any lower aim could not have been placed before us, without making us content with a character unlike that of the First Good and the First Fair.” See statement and criticism of Edwards’s view in Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 227-238. VI. Relation of the Doctrine of Creation to other Doctrines. 1. To the holiness and benevolence of God.