Glory

“Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad – for these trials make you partners with Christ in His suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing His glory when it is revealed to all the world. So be happy when you are insulted for being a Christian, for then the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.” (1 Peter 4:12-14 NLT)

It’s strange that as believers in America, we’re so prone to whine and complain when we go through any kind of difficult circumstance, yet Peter tells us that it’s in such circumstances, especially if they’re prompted by our faith in Christ, that we experience the glorious presence of the Lord’s Spirit upon our life. Glory, at least as used in Scripture, belongs to God alone.

Regardless of how faithful we are, how spiritual we believe we are, how many hours we spend in prayer, worshipping, serving, or in any other way doing things that exalt and honor the Lord Jesus or His Holy Father, we are never worthy to receive one ounce of glory. Why not? Because our sole purpose as a believer in Jesus is to render to Him ALL glory, praise and honor for everything we do, say, or think.

That’s the purpose of our being, to be conduits through which the Holy Spirit can direct glory to God the Father and to His sinless Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Darlene Zschech understood this when she wrote: “We were never designed to receive glory. We were designed to give glory.” Why is that? Because the word used in Scripture translated into English as “glory,” means: “the kingly majesty which belongs to God as supreme ruler, majesty in the sense of the absolute perfection of the deity; a thing belonging to Christ.”

Glory, honor, praise, and adoration belong to the Lord Jesus for all He accomplished through Creation, magnified and highlighted by His sacrifice on the Cross, doing for us and on our behalf that which we could never in eternity have done for ourselves. There is no amount of human effort, individually or corporately, that could have accomplished what Jesus accomplished on the Cross.

There’s no amount of human effort that can forgive sin, erase our past, and give us victory over sin, death, and the grave, only Jesus. There’s really no way to fully describe Him, but I love how Dr. S. M. Lockridge describes Jesus when he shares: THAT’S MY KING! (Just tap on the title) Be sure to turn up your sound! 😊

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊