Last time, I discussed God’s glory and the fact that by walking with Him and letting go of our sins, we can reflect His glory. Today, I would like to focus on man’s glorious life!
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, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2Cor 3:18
If you are a born again believer, most likely you have a desire to glorify God with your life. The scripture tells us that as we behold His glory, we go from glory to glory .What does it mean for us to have glory?
Many times when we think about glory, it is about doing good deeds, serving, leading, or discipleship. If people complement us, we feel good about it. We feel we have glorified God, and God allows us to have a little bit of glory because we represented Him well. Sometimes while we may use the word glory, in our American mentality, we really are thinking about the glamour of ministering to the people. We like to talk about Christian celebrities, who is the latest and greatest preacher, where is the most exciting Christian concert, and what is the bestselling book lately. We are not called to a glamorous christianity but a glorious one!!
When we look at the Biblical characters, their lives were far from being glamorous!! There were no Christian concerts. Your life could have been in danger by just worshipping God loudly and bringing attention to yourself. There were no books sold and no bestselling authors for that matter. As a matter of fact, when the author of life came on the scene, most people rejected Him and ignored Him as the Messiah!! So what is true glorious life?
The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, And his glory is to overlook a transgression. Proverbs 19:11
While doing good deeds is part of our Christian walk and obviously people are blessed by Christian concerts and books, true glory has a deeper dimension to it. It takes great humility to overlook an offense. When we have been wronged, hurt, or offended, every part of us wants justice and thinks that the other person doesn’t deserve a second chance. We actually think they deserve punishment and justice; they don’t deserve God’s favor, or His love. They don’t even deserve the position they hold. Isn’t that scary!? Pride & glory don’t go together!!
The God of universe, the perfect lamb who was willing to rescue us over and over again shows us mercy continually, but we don’t want to show mercy to others. Isn’t that pride at its root? We think we deserve better. We think, “After all that I have done for him or for her, how dare they treat me like that?”. Jesus didn’t make that comment when He was betrayed by Judas. He actually called him friend just before He was going to be betrayed by Him. He didn’t say that when Peter denied him either. He came back to Peter and asked him if he loved Jesus. He was willing to take the risk of asking that question. He didn’t assume because of his denial it meant Peter didn’t love him anymore.
Jesus at His most painful moments on the cross asked the Father” “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Luke 23:34
This is very interesting. Jesus chose to forgive by asking the father to forgive us. If Jesus had not asked the Father to forgive us do you think we would have the forgiveness of our sins? He had the total power to judge. He was the perfect one, but He chose to forgive us. He wasn’t offended. He said they don’t know what they are doing. Do we think that of people? No. We may think of their offense as this well thought out and well-planned activity to destroy and demolish us. This was actually true about Jesus, but He still considered it that they didn’t know what they were doing. Jesus was so secure about who He was and whose he was, and His mission on the earth that nothing could discourage Him from His mission.
Lord help us to know our mission so well that when people don’t acknowledge us or don’t value us, that we’re not crushed or devastated. We can just say forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing!!
Overlooking an offense is not glamorous. There is nothing glamorous about kicking and screaming and crying and saying this isn’t fair. There is nothing glamorous to wrestle with God and have puffy eyes from all the crying that we do to get over the pain. There is nothing glamorous about dying to self and taking up the cross on daily basis, but that’s the Bible I’m reading. There is nothing glamorous about telling people we don’t know what God is doing, but still waiting for Him while all along people in the world make their own plans and they even have a plan B and C in case their plan A fails. One may feel foolish and humiliated, but still trust God!! As the above scripture tells us, overlooking an offense or transgression is glorious!! We go from glory to glory in those painful and agonizing moments!!
Jesus is our hope of Glory! When we have been emptied of ourselves by taking up our cross, we go from glory to glory. You see reading the Bible is good, but if we don’t put it to practice, we start getting puffed up with knowledge. We deceive ourselves by thinking just because we know the scripture, we live it!! Living it is in the quiet moments of our lives when we have been crossed by someone and the way we handle it is our opportunity for glory. We decrease, so He can increase in our lives!!
Lord give us the courage to do what you ask us to do without hesitation, murmuring, or arguing!! We love you too much to allow anything get in the way of our relationship with you. In Jesus’ name we ask!! Amen!