Focus: Where Is The Glory? (Pt.2)

Text: Eph.3:21

"Unto him be glory IN THE CHURCH by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

God's glory is meant to reside in the church of Jesus Christ. The church serves as the medium of manifestation for the glory of God. The church is the divine vehicle of vision. It is the divine instrument of illumination. Concerning the temple, David says to the people, "The house that is to be builded for the LORD MUST be EXCEEDING MAGNIFICAL, of FAME and of GLORY throughout all countries…" (1Chron.22:5). The church is the place where God's glory is domiciled. It is a sacred body in which the Spirit of God resides and presides. But from the look of things, the divine glory seems missing. The treasure seems trapped in the earthen vessel. There is urgent need to break the pitchers for the light within them to shine forth. The alabaster containing the costly perfume has to be broken for the sweet aroma of it to fill the house. The people of this world must see the glory of God through us.

One fundamental way of letting the glory out is by incarnation of true spirituality. In John 1:14, we are told of the Word BECOMING flesh, and John says, "And we BEHELD his glory…" Everywhere Jesus Christ, the enfleshed Word, is, there is always something to see about God in Him and from Him. The Lord Jesus Christ not only exegeted, but also manifested God on the earth. He made God visible and tangible. In Jesus Christ God came near and lived among men. He spoke and acted like God. He demonstrated God. In Christ the divine word develops hands and feet, eyes and ears, and every part that makes up a human being. The fullness of God dwelt in Him bodily. You can't be close to Christ and not be close to God at the same time. 

He says, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." In Jesus Christ words have transformed, not just into something, but into someone. The abstract has become the concrete. The transcendent is now the immanent. The faraway is now near. Distance is covered and the gap closed. John and others beheld the glory of the incarnate word - the word in a visible and tangible form. In Jesus Christ the word assumes a personality. It moved from a proposition to a person. The word can be heard, seen and touched in the person of Jesus Christ. That is the glory. 

Words have no glory unless they become works. Henry Ford said that no one is going to congratulate you for what you are going to do, but for what you have done. Do you know that intention and internment share the same root? Intention without action amounts to nothing. It ends up in a coffin.

Now when a man becomes God-like, there is glory in that. We read in Acts that "when the people SAW what Paul had DONE, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The GODS ARE COME DOWN TO US IN THE LIKENESS OF MEN" (Act.14:11). The Lycaonians saw God in Paul for what he did. In Paul the word becomes flesh.

Of the believers in Corinth, Paul says, "Ye are our EPISTLE written in our hearts, known and read of all men." He continues, "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the EPISTLE of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in FLESHLY tables of the heart" (2Cor.3:2,3). 

As God's people and believers in Christ, we are the living and walking Bibles. We are the Bibles that others can read and connect with God. In us and by us the word becomes flesh. The hearts of men encounter the reality of the Scripture of truth through us.

James exhorts and instructs his readers, "But be ye DOERS of the WORD, not HEARERS only, deceiving your own selves" (Jam.1:22). Self-deception occurs when words do not translate to works or when there is lack of connection between what we hear and what we do, and also, between what we say and what we do. People see the glory of God when we hear and do the word of God. We give the word flesh when we hear and do it, and that is where the glory lies. When we do the word, we are simply translating or transcribing Scripture into our lifestyle for others to see and read.

In the prayer Jesus Christ taught us to pray, He says, "Thy WILL be done in earth, as it is in heaven," and in Hebrews 10:7, we read concerning Jesus Christ, "I, Lo, I come…to do thy WILL, O God." Jesus Christ came all the way from heaven to do God's will on earth. All He said and did while here on earth was nothing short of the will of God. By dying on the cross He fulfilled the will of God. In fact, the moment of the cross was the moment of glory for Christ. He says, "The hour is come, that the Son of man should be GLORIFIED," and again, He says, "Now is the Son of man GLORIFIED, and God is GLORFIED in him. If God be GLORIFIED in him, God shall also GLORIFY him in himself, and shall straightway GLORIFY him" (Jh.12:23,31,32). 

You see why Jesus Christ would not avoid the cross? It is because it had God's glory in it and all over it. It had the signature of God and the stamp of His approval all over it. The cross was the decreed and determined will of God. It could not be jettisoned by any means possible. Indeed it would have been forever a shameful thing if Jesus Christ had boycotted, evaded, or avoided the cross. The cross, a thing of shame to man, was indeed a thing of glory to God. Paul says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…" (Gal.6:14). 

No Christian, who keeps avoiding or evading the cross, will ever bring glory to God. God is glorified when He sees the cross in our love, in our worship, in our words, and in our spiritual walk, witness and works. God derives no pleasure or glory in a Christ-less and cross-less Christianity - that kind of Christianity that is settled for comfort and convenience.

Mahatma Gandhi would describe such an easy faith as the blunder of worship without sacrifice, of knowledge without character, of commerce without morality, of pleasure without conscience, of politics without principles, of science without humanity, and of wealth without work. His grandson, Arun Gandhi, added the eight blunder, which is rights without responsibility. Christianity devoid of the cross of Christ is a costly blunder. It lacks the divine glory.

The will of God is inscribed, enshrined and expressed in the word of God. Jesus Christ delivered the word and fulfilled the will of God. The will of God is more than a passionate wish; it is a determined decision. It is not enough to pray for God's will to be done on earth; God requires that we become the doers of His will. We are called by God to make His dream come true on planet earth. We have the divine mandate to embody the will of God on earth, and by so doing we manifest His glory in the world.

I pray that men and women who come into contact with you will quickly and readily find the glory of God. You are the epistle of Christ. You are God's word in the flesh - the word of God in visible and tangible form. I pray that the word of Christ will dwell in you richly and dominate every facet of your life! May others locate God's glory in you and with you! Amen.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter