Written for One Audience

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the most prolific composers in Western history — over a thousand works, from sweeping cantatas to simple keyboard exercises for his children. But tucked at the bottom of nearly every manuscript he completed, you'll find three letters: SDG. They stand for Soli Deo Gloria — Latin for "To God Alone be the Glory."

Bach inscribed those letters even on routine teaching pieces, even on works he knew might never be performed publicly. For him, it wasn't a pious formality. It was a declaration of identity. He wasn't composing for patrons, critics, or posterity. He was composing for an audience of One.

We live in an age that relentlessly asks us to perform — to curate our image, to earn our worth, to prove ourselves by our output. The anxiety of that performance can be exhausting. But Bach had answered the identity question before he ever sat down to write a single note. He knew whose he was, and so he knew who he was.

Paul says it plainly: "You were bought at a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20). Our identity doesn't come from what we produce or how we're received by others. It comes from the One whose glory we were made to reflect.