Focus: Where's the Glory?

Text: Eph.3:21.

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

Paul is deep in theology and great in doxology. Theology that does not lead to or inspire doxology is not worth the name.

The doxology says, 'Glory to God IN the church BY Jesus Christ.' The two little words, 'in' and 'by' are same word in the Greek. Glory IN the church. Glory BY the church. Interestingly, the church has only one adjective to it in the whole of the New Testament, and it is found in Eph.5:27 - the "glorious church."

The church is ordained to house and display God's glory. Isaiah saw the temple filled with the glory of the Lord. In Hagai, God says, "I will fill this house with glory..." Jesus prays in John 17, and says to His Father, "I am glorified in them," and again, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them... that they may behold my glory." The church is the trustee of God's glory, the custodian of divine truth, and the steward of His manifold grace.

John says, "And we beheld his glory..." It is the glory we behold that we hold in trust for God.

David saw the glory of God's house and made sufficient provisions for it. "And David said...the house that is to be builded for the LORD must be EXCEEDING MAGNIFICAL, of FAME and of GLORY throughout all countries: I will therefore now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death" - 1Chron.22:5.

Look at that! - "throughout all the countries" - "throughout all ages, world without end." That's everywhere, every age glory. Global and generational glory. Glory exuded and unveiled by the church.

Let's make provisions for the glory we envision. Let's make room for the glory. Let's understand that we are meant to be the carriers of the divine glory.

The charm of the church is the glory of God, and glory is the God-ness of God. Meet God and the first thing you see is His glory. Without the glory the church is just another social place. Abraham was willing to part ways with the familiar because "the God of glory appeared" to him.

Let's seek the glory and bring it back. The world waits to see glory in the church, even in the believer.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter