Show Me Your Glory

And gave up His strength to captivity And His glory into the hand of the adversary (Psalm 78:61)

 

Sometimes the Lord will wake you up in the middle of the night with an insight and then the truth that He shows you just keeps circling around and around in your head. This happened to me last week. As I slept the Lord brought to my mind a word that Jesus shared with His disciples that we have recorded in the book of Luke…

28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. (Luke 14:28-33)

As the Spirit spoke this passage in my heart the Lord reminded me that the coming of Jesus was planned out before the foundation of the world.

“For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you…” (1 Peter 1:20)

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34)

Jesus was the Builder and the King who counted the cost. Before He spoke the world into existence (Genesis 1:3, John 1:1-4, Hebrews 1:1-3) and created man in His own image, He had already calculated what creating this world and building this kingdom would cost Him. He already knew that it could cost Him His glory and cost Him His life. He already knew that it would require Him to leave the majesty and honor of heaven and be humbled on this earth. He knew that it would mean humbling Himself to the point of being born of a woman as a child in flesh and blood. A child that would be surrendered into the hands of His own creation who had been made corrupt and cruel by sin and the deceiver of old to be cared for until He grew to be a man who would be humbled to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Jesus in complete faith in the Father laid aside His glory and trusted that He would be restored to it in accordance with the plan that had been purposed before there was a world to save. As the Word of His power said, “Let there be light…” He had already taken into consideration the state of a could be sinful mankind and the wiles of the serpent of old that would do all he could to deceive and destroy so that he could stake his claim as ruler and prince of the world that God had spoken into existence. Yet, even so, Jesus still, “gave up His strength to captivity and His glory into the hand of the adversary” (Psalm 78:61).

He was able to surrender all because He knew that He was not alone and that the Father in Heaven and the Holy Spirit would indeed see His mission accomplished. He laid aside His glory with no fear of insurrection or concern of abandonment for He knew they were One in unity and purpose…

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26)

Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” (Isaiah 6:8)

In the book of Exodus Moses is talking with God and crying out to Him to not leave the people of Israel though they were a stiff-necked and rebellious people. In His prayer to God he cries out, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” The Lord replies and lets Moses look upon His back as He passes by in front of him, but that is all that can be seen of God at this time without the glory of His holiness destroying Moses’ sinful self were he stood. For not even the angels around the throne of God crying “Holy, Holy, Holy,” could look upon His face… that is until one day a child was born and His name was Immanuel, God with us.

14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Then the glory which was given to the Word made flesh, the Immanuel God with us, the Son of Man and Son of God, He gave to those who believed… that they, who believe, might also be one with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit perfected in unity and purpose.

The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; 23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.  (John 17:22-23)

In Exodus 33 Moses cried show me Your glory and could only see the back of God. Then in John 1 God’s glory comes down and we can now behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Then in John 17 Jesus prays for us that not only will we behold His glory, but He is giving that glory to us so that, as 2 Corinthians 3 declares, we can show His glory to the world as they see us being transformed by it and conformed to the image of the One who came and died and rose again to bestow it upon us.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Now when the Moses’ of the world cry out, “show me Your glory!” Our God looks at us and says, “now is your chance, show them My glory.”

25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.  (Colossians 1:25-28)

So beloved of God as you enter in to this Christmas season and as we remember the day that heaven came down and glory walked this earth and Jesus made the way for glory to fill our soul, how are you showing the world His glory? Are you willing to follow in the footsteps of the King of Glory and count the cost and willingly submit to the purpose of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit and humble yourselves to be obedient to whatever He has called you to even to the point of being obedient to the point of death, even death on your own cross?


 

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