33. The Glory of God

A brother in Christ shared the following thoughts with me. I enjoyed them and would like to pass them along to you.

God is infinitely great, in every category of quality and ability that would engender or express glory.  In stark contrast to us, it is impossible for anyone to exaggerate God’s love, His kindness, His wisdom, His power, His majesty….   It is impossible for God to “boast” unsuitably; how easily we can overstate our qualifications, wisdom, nobility etc.! …As the self-existent Eternal, He is uncreated, uncaused, underived from anyone or anything else…. Every ability, capacity, quality that renders us useful, attractive, admired has been bestowed, dispensed to us by God…  It is simple REALITY that all glory actually belongs to God.

There is a principle that I think holds true in connecting us to God; what is for His glory, is for our blessing.  We find our fulfillment, meaning, purpose in life as we glorify God.   There are actually two aspects of what it means to glorify God; first of all by our response to what He is, in obedience & service, trust, and appreciation; secondly, by manifesting some aspect of His character and life, in our relationships to others…  I believe the beauty of Christ’s submission and humility fulfills both aspects of glorifying God: “I am meek and lowly in heart.”  It is touching to realize that the One Who upholds the universe is meek and lowly; it could only be manifested fully in entering His own creation and serving our needs fully, then actually sacrificing His own life to redeem ours back to God.  But that is the true nature of the Eternal God!  Christ in manhood is the true expression of the moral nature of God…  The Father’s delight is to honour the Son (John 5:22-24; Phil.2:11). There is no competitiveness, or rivalry. Love is linked with glory– this is highlighted in John 17, especially from about v.22-26, where once again we see that the Father’s delight is to “give glory” to the Son, and incredibly, to embrace us as well in that desire — the Son likewise delights to confer upon us the same glory the Father conferred upon Him… The real secret is that He is LOVE and longs to share all that is possible to be shared with us; but that cannot change or erase the reality that He is FIRST, the true Source and Goal of all things – only when He is given His true place does everything work properly…  What I am suggesting is that it is only when He is being glorified, that we can be blessed and life can operate as it should – so His glory is fundamental to reality, and essential to true life for all of creation.

He conferred tremendous glory on a creature called Lucifer, and that beauty and power was subverted to exalt himself in rivalry to God – that is the genesis of all sin and all false worship.  I think we could say that God’s protection of His glory is a good jealousy, that must be maintained, or at least finally reclaimed.  That is why pride is the sin most directly against God.  “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” is not because He is also proud and takes a spiteful rivalry, but rather because He is Himself humble, and cannot support or honour inflated self-glorying.

Relating love again with glory, that is another key aspect of Biblical love – our God is a jealous God.  His love does place demands upon us – His is a love that gives all, and demands all; like the love of marriage.   In fact, love never nullifies the honour or authority of another person; rather it respects it fully – again paralleled in the human marriage relationship. Therefore, when we love God as we are called to do, we will instinctively seek to glorify Him — that is, respect and respond to Him as He is.

– B. Rodgers