In order to induce your will more easily to desire that in all things you have God’s approval and work for His honor, remind yourself often the many ways that he has first honored and loved you:

• In the creation, he made you from nothing into his likeness, and has put all other creatures at your service (see Gen. 1:26-28).
• In the redemption, he sent not an angel but his only-begotten Son to redeem you, not with the corruptible price of gold and silver, but with his own precious blood (see 1 Peter 1.18-19) and with his pitiable and ignominious death.
• At every hour afterwards he guards you from enemies, fights on your behalf with his grace, keeps his beloved Son continually ready in the Sacrament of the altar as your defense and your food.

Is this not an incalculable sign of the esteem and love that the immense God bears you? So that no one can understand how deeply considerate our Lord is to us poor ones, considerate of our lowliness and misery, and on the other hand that which we are obliged to do for so great a Majesty, who has done these and many things on our behalf. If the lords of the earth feel themselves obliged to honor someone who honors them, even if that person be poor and humble, how should our baseness react upon seeing ourselves so highly appraised and beloved by the supreme king of the universe?

Beyond what I have said here, remember always, above everything else, that the divine Majesty infinitely deserves your honor and service by his very nature, simply because he desires it.