As I have said many times, the gospel of the glory of Christ mentioned in 2 Cor 4:4 by the Apostle Paul, that is revealed in all the new translations from 1952 onwards, when the RSV of the Bible appeared, is that the glory of God, which He would not yield to anyone except Jesus [Isaiah 48:11] has been given to Jesus and Jesus has giaven it to us, as He prayed in John 17:21-23. "That all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We are One: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me."
As to what the glory of God is and what it does has been mentioned in the last revision. – In its basic form, it is the power of God to change the nature of substances, situations and attitudes to allow us to achieve the perfect unity as one, that Jesus prayed for in John 17:21-23.
Now to understand fully this gift of glory, you must realise God is seeking glory – John 8:50 “I am not seeking glory for Myself; but there is One Who seeks it and He is the Judge.”
There are two things God seeks – 1) a type of people and 2) glory John 4:24 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.”
Jesus came to seek and save the lost Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
But God the Father is looking for people who would worship Him in spirit and in truth, and He is also looking for glory – to glorify Himself and in glorifying Himself – glorifying Jesus and the Holy Spirit Who are one with Him, in Him.
If you know what a person is looking for, searching for, seeking for, then you will begin to understand the purpose and motive for what He does. The reason God gave out His glory to Jesus, is because He is seeking glory for Himself and by His own word – God has to sow glory to harvest glory – a principal expounded by the teachers of prosperity when they want you to sow into their ministry in order that you may have a harvest yourself. God is the Sower – the true Sower, Who sowed His word, His power, His gifts and His Son into creation – and yes, He will harvest back His word, power, gifts, His Son a hundred fold and more. But in the midst of all this, knowing what God is seeking will help you understand and see His motive.
In the parable of the pearl [Matthew 13:45], the Merchant is looking for fine pearls and as Jesus said, “When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” The merchant found what he was looking for – and he moved on – he was satisfied.
Knowing what God is seeking will help you give to God what satisfies Him and if you know how to satisfy God, you know and understand Him.
If glory is what God seeks, then God has given us His glory through Jesus Christ in order to reap a harvest of glory – so now, understand that this gift of glory is the only gift from God of something that He personally seeks.
Glory is the substance that God seeks for Himself. You may not like that thought and you may not accept it, but Jesus, Who knows the Father and is the only Person Who understands the Father, knows what the Father is seeking -> worshippers who’d worship Him in spirit and in truth and glory. So Jesus must have come to fulfil this for the Father – to satisfy the Father’s ambition – to give back to the Father glory, and by saving the lost, raise up for the Father those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth.
This Jesus did by giving us His words to listen to and to practise, and to abide in, for His words are truth and Jesus Himself is The Truth. Jesus knew that if we were to even come near worshipping God in truth, Jesus Himself would have to show us what truth is. Jesus came to answer Pontius Pilate’s question in John 18:38 “What is truth?” To which Jesus replies – “I am The Truth” John 14:6 It is also the reason the Lord asked the Father for another Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, to be with us. For who knows how to worship the Father in spirit better than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God Himself – who else is a better teacher than Him – to teach those whom the Father would give to Jesus how to worship Him in spirit and in truth.
You see, God isn’t just after any worshippers – if that was the case, He wouldn’t have to send Jesus and the Holy Spirit. That is why God is not interested in people who worship Him with rules made up by man. He is not even interested in anyone, even if they use the name of Jesus to worship Him, through whatever rules that seem good to them. That is why the recommendations of James the Younger adopted by the Jerusalem Council in Acts 18 do not interest God at all. For all the abstinence from sexual immorality, foods sacrificed to idols, strangled meat and the drinking of blood will not be able to raise up worshippers of God that satisfies the standard God is seeking – only Jesus and the Holy Spirit can do that – and only the teachings and words of Jesus carry the instructions by which such worshippers can be raised.
The Law of Moses never raised up for God any worshippers that worshipped Him in spirit and in truth. It raised up a people out of whom would come Jesus, the true raiser of the dead – raising up from sinners people who are disqualified from worshipping the Holy God – worshippers that God seeks. It is through these worshippers that God is truly glorified. No one is glorified by the praises of those who do not know Him or understand Him, nor are able to speak the truth about Him – and neither is God. So for God, Who seeks glory – not only does He have to sow glory, that He may receive it – but He has to raise up a suitable group of people, who can truly glorify Him.
This He has done, by giving the glory to Jesus – as Jesus said: John 13:3,32 “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself, and will glorify Him at once.” And Jesus has sown it into us – those who believe in the message about Him, as delivered by the disciples. Thus as Paul wrote – those He justified, He also glorified. Romans 8:30
God knows that we, who are born sinners and un-spiritual, can never worship Him in spirit and in truth, unless we are changed; like water for washing feet was changed to good wine at the wedding at Cana. So the Lord gave us the glory, that we might be changed into a group of people who would worship Him in spirit and in truth; and through such people, God will receive His due glory as the name of Jesus is lifted up. As it is written in 2 Thessalonians 1:10 ….on the day He comes to be glorified in His holy people and to be marvelled at among all those who have believed.
Can you see there are 2 types of - or 2 groups of people here? One group will marvel at Jesus as He is glorified in the second, His holy people. The holy people of Jesus are those who are worthy to take part in the first resurrection – those who are coming back to reign with Him for the Millennium – and those who will marvel at this are the saints who remain in heaven awaiting the 2nd resurrection.
These are people who have one thing in common – beheaded for the sake of their testimony of Jesus --- that is whatever they say about Jesus is what they live by and die by – live by as if they have lost their head, and die by – no matter what is offered. Their testimony of Jesus is not what is politically correct, socially fashionable or financially expedient. People like Joan of Arc – you see, she lived by her testimony of Jesus and died for her testimony of Jesus – the Jesus that she saw, believed and knew. And her death only served to highlight the cowardice of the Dauphne of France, the duplicity of the Bishops of France and England and the cruelty of the King of England – filthy old men whose personal ambitions would seek to burn young flesh at the stake. When you live and die for what you believe, but never kill for what you believe, that is the beginning of Jesus in you.
The gift of glory is to help you to be changed until you are part of the holy people. – Holy because you are separate – separate because you listen only to Jesus. You follow only Jesus. You are not ashamed to practise what Jesus practises. And you seek to become one – as God is one with Jesus – honouring and holding no man in regard – except the Man Who God trusts fully -> Jesus Christ
As you continue to practise the use of the glory of God given you – so you are preparing the harvest of glory for God – the very thing that God is seeking – Glory!.
The experimental knowledge of the miraculous power of God in His glory is what begins the process of refining you and changing you, so that you are made ready for election to be part of the Holy People of God. God will allow a little miraculous gifting in your life to see if you will display your true form and prostitute yourself using His power. You will never know if you can trust a person with more, unless you give them a little. That is why the master in the Parable of Talents gave some to his servants – just enough to test each of them to reveal their true nature. Too often, the preachers of God receive revelations or positions of God, and go off to raise themselves up – for God’s so-called glory.
However, if you will learn for yourself and then teach the others that God is really testing you, when He lets you experience operating His miraculous power and glory to see if you will remain humble and secretive – and not go out to boast about it. Then you are ready to be a vessel that can give what God is seeking -> Glory. Thus, glory is the one gift that God is seeking a return on – for He is the One Who seeks glory.
In order to understand more about the glory of God, it is therefore necessary to see how God glorifies Himself, and what the scriptures say glorifies God. If you know what and how God is glorified, you will know the means and situations that can bring glory to God, that is to give God what He seeks. Then your ministry and indeed your life, becomes one of simply setting yourself up into those situations and becoming those persons through whom God is glorified.
God is glorified in Jesus – John 13:31 “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him.” How? When Jesus was betrayed by Judas and set up for the crucifixion.
To understand how Jesus fully glorified God, you must look beyond the miracles and power to see the grace of God displayed by Jesus, who was able to forgive, from the cross, those who crucified Him. The display of what God is through Jesus Christ’s life and death, glorifies God. Our acceptance of this glorifies God. So, if we are to become vessels through whom God can receive glory, we must become also the very personification of Jesus Christ; not only in character of goodness, kindness, gentleness, long suffering, perseverance, self control, love, joy, peace, truth, righteousness and praise of God; but also a person of miraculous power. A person who has no miraculous power displaying goodness, kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, perseverance, self control, love, joy, peace, truth, righteousness and praise of God – does not personify Jesus – for Jesus was all of these and more.
He had the fullness of power as well – power to raise the dead, walk on water, change water to good wine, heal the sick – and the power to come off the cross any time He wanted to. The ability of Jesus Christ to use only His miraculous power in full obedience to the Fathers will only - is what glorifies God.
Thus the imitation of Jesus Christ that glorifies God must carry this twin insignia of fullness of character and fullness of power. That is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to give us power to be His witnesses and the Holy Spirit is willing to give us His gift of miraculous powers – once given, for which there is no repentance. This isn’t about God performing miracles for you. – This is about you performing miracles for God…. That’s where the point has been missed. It is not about you trusting God, it is about you being trusted by God. The only Man trusted by God fully is and has been Jesus Christ. Even John the Baptist said: John 3:34 For the One Whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.
And if the Spirit is given without limit; then knowledge, wisdom, understanding, power, counsel, fear of the Lord, truth, life, holiness, revelations, grace and glory is given without limit. Now it is clear that Jesus wants to raise up from amongst those who have believed in Him, ones who can also be trusted by God to the same degree – that is why He said: John 17:21 “Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You, may they also be in Us…. I in them and You in Me.”
Paul who understood this all too well, prayed for us – Eph 3:17 And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of al the fullness of God.
Paul was prevented by the super Apostles of his day and men from James to raise up for the Lord a group of people who could fulfil this. I say this, because had Paul succeeded, God would have sent Jesus back already. For such a group of people who understand, not just know of the glory of God, but understand what glory means to God, are like the pearls of great worth that the pearl merchant seeks to sell up and close his business for.
For to God, glory is as important as His life; His eternal life. He showed us this when He swore on 2 things in Numbers 14:21 concerning the fate of the rebellious Israelites – “Nevertheless, as surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Lord fills the earth….”. In this one statement, you would see, if you understand, God’s life is GLORY and GLORY is His life. The earth is filled with His glory – that is why He cannot leave it in the hands of His enemy, nor can He destroy it – but He had to send Jesus. – It is the fact that the earth is full of the glory of God – glory that God seeks – that God so loved the world that He sent his One and Only begotten Son,……. to save the world John 3:16,17
Although God seeks glory; God seeks glory not as a man or devil seeks glory, but it is the way that God seeks glory, that makes Him GOD Who is humble and perfect.
Firstly – God seeks glory by giving glory away first – thus God glorifies Jesus first before Jesus glorifies Him. – In the same way, Jesus seeks glory by giving us His glory first.
Thus we are glorified by Jesus before we begin to glorify Him. – Jesus says we are good enough for Him before we even know Who He is; thus He is the Lamb slain before the creation of the world.
God seeks glory through:
- The means of our death as well as our life – John 21:19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then He said to him, “Follow Me!”
- We Gentiles are also saved to glorify God
- Our good deeds – that is, our God like deeds, for God alone is GOOD, glorifies Him – not our acts of charity, or fasting or prayer 1 Peter 2:12 Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.
- Our repentance glorifies God Rev.16:9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the Name of God, Who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify Him.
- He raises up enemies like Pharoah to oppose Him. Exodus 9:16 “But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you My power and that My Name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
But above all else – God’s seeking of glory is not just for Himself – it remains a gift – a gift to Jesus and a gift to all of us.
Now stand in awe of God, for who are you, that you should share in the glory of God except God has deeded it so.
So praise Him from lips that confess JESUS as LORD. AMEN.
GLORIFY GOD WITH GLORY – FOR IT IS THE GIFT HE SEEKS.
TO THE GLORY OF GOD. AMEN!
