In the beginning, God …. (Genesis)
“But to all who did receive him, who believed on his name, he gave the right to be children of God.” -John 1:12
“And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!” -2Galatians 4:6.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” -2Cor. 4:7.
“You show that you are a letter from Christ … written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” -2Cor. 3:3.
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” -2Corinthians 3:18.
(Revelation) … The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.
A golden thread binding together the entire Word of God is glory, given to us in grace. It is found in the beginning with Genesis 1 and stitched into every book and letter written through Revelation. Even Old Testament law was given in grace and here also God’s glory is front and center, from Moses on Mt. Sinai through the desert, to the Mt. of Transfiguration in the New Testament, from Calvary’s cross into a new creation within a believer’s heart. Even now we wait, in anticipation of the glory of seeing Him face to face, and the glory then following when every eye shall see our coming King.
God’s glory depicts the mystery and wonder of His magnificent being. He emerges not only as the source of light and creator of wonders we observe, He radiates mystery beyond our imagination. His image of Glory leads us out from mere mortal touch into a Beyond where dwells spirits that awe human wonder. God is The Source; He dictates a sovereign ideal embodied in the person of Jesus. He is Holy! Creation as we know it, simply declares His glory in finger work.
Our utterance of His name defiles His image! But His mercy and love is grander than our debauchery and insult; He provides undeserving people a salvation providing a share in His family with participation in His glory! His new creation in us emanates His “light” for others to see. We are family, adopted so that we may share His authority. We may now come in person before Him accessing His grace in which we stand. He is now our Abba! He is now our Father! May we grasp His grace and allow His glory to radiate in our jars of clay!
Our most amazing human experience is witnessing God’s living presence within our own mortal clay vessel. This is the “Light” within us that is so often quoted in scripture. Our Spiritual experience is muted by our poor choices; we dabble in God’s grace and decipher it for practically nothing as we accept His love without perusing His open door to mercy, love and “so much more.” We so demean His grand gift and deprive our own selves from knowing the divine glory created within reach of our new birthed identities. Our judged flesh and bones are past, the new has already come! We seem satisfied with a hope without grasping existing grace and growing in what God already provides. We have so much more promised to those willing to grasp and consume grace, “forgive our hardened hearts!”
How can our merciful God extend love to our haughty self esteem! He reaches down in His mercy into our decadence and provides resurrection power when we choose to be an overcomer! But more than that, He actually leads us into His glory, even as we complain, asking deliverance from the suffering which is our cost for His truth. Even though He willingly suffered on our behalf, our deceived hearts and minds mask from us the beauty of sharing ourselves in His suffering for us. May we love you more!
The glory of God defines who He is. Our participation by grace in Him, requires righteously meeting His standard of glory but it this isn’t available out from our own capacity; it comes from our dying and producing His Life. We are salted with fire Mark tells us. The Life we now have in Christ is sealed in us and salted as we continue to place our own self on the alter of sacrifice. Our sacrifice burns up our old self, keeping fresh the Life God created in us; the salt is His word of grace and the alter of fire is in our will to choose! We are the aroma of Jesus, an offering of self, salted with His presence, salted with fire!
Jesus said, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For the one who has, more will be given, and the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Grace is given to us to understand but we must “pay attention to what we hear,” or in other words, we need to listen with our soul. But to listen we must hear and to hear we must expose our heart and mind to what the Word of God is saying. God’s will is revealed in His Word. This is “grasping” and “consuming” grace; “grasping” is understanding and “consuming” is accepting His grace into our person. Jesus is telling us, the more grace we consume, the more grace will be provided into our soul. The more grace we consume, the brighter our “Light” shines because more fuel is added.
Grace is God’s provision for us to enter in to His Life so that we are capable of being whom He intends us to be. Anything short of God’s glory is sin and will separate us from walking in His Light and Life. Paul tells us if we live in the Spirt we need to walk in the Spirit. As we walk in the light as He is in the Light, we experience fellowship and the blood of Jesus continues washing even as we are in flesh. We can enter into His salvation but loose reward of His glory by not growing in grace and knowledge of His holy being, being salted with fire is walking in Light, Life and Fellowship!
God is an absolute righteous person and requires absolute righteousness from mankind to establish fellowship. Man’s righteousness cannot not measure up to God’s standard so God came into our human existence, took on the burden of sin, and conquered it with His resurrection life. This is the created resurrected Life Jesus gives to each of us when we are born again. But when we are born again, we are Spiritual children requiring discipline within our own heart and mind. We are born new as Spiritual children standing in grace. Grace makes available the resurrection power of Jesus inside of us, so we can be “overcomers,” but we must start by drinking milk before chewing meat. We are children before we are “sons.”
Our born again created life in Jesus is Spiritual. We are created Spiritually new but our habit to walk in flesh is still in this jar of clay we still wear. We need to change our priorities from who we were to whom we now are. This is the point we have been making from Romans 8. Our new created identity is Spiritual; we are no longer controlled by the flesh. We need to learn how to be who we now are in the Spirit!
The law of the Spirit, now within us by new creation has set us free from the law of sin and death. God has done what the law limited by flesh could not do. God provides the righteous requirement of the law to now be fulfilled in us with the resurrected life of Jesus our Lord and Savior. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus! We are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit if the Holy Spirit of God is dwelling in us. Thank you, Abba!
This is the “new man” we are to put on created in us. This is huge! It has taken me a life time to understand what this means and how important it is. The reason it has taken me so long to grasp this grace given to us is being able to “hear.” We do not understand how deeply we are governed by bias and prejudice. My heart was hardened just like the disciple who could not hear what Jesus was often saying. We permit our soul to freely roam secretly and without notice within the structured values we have placed in our own soul over the years. Abba, forgive our unbelief!
It is one thing to know in our mind, it is another to know in our heart and still another to know by faith. We switch our whole being from relying on temporal values to relying Spiritually by faith. Knowing Him is knowing Life at the glory level!
We need our Abba! We need our Father! He is Spirit and He is our creator of flesh, how blessed we are! Thank you our, loving Lord. Have mercy upon us as we discover by stumbling into the victory you have already provided. We must “put on” Jesus.
“Lead us and guide us,
stay close beside us,
help us to witness and shine.”
The resurrection Life of Jesus in us brings us back into the fellowship God originally intended. The fulfillment of this process is our glorification, that is, our soul, spirit and body become like our resurrected Lord Jesus. We are both justified and glorified. We have a glorious calling from the Lord of all glory. May we open our heart’s door to His fellowship, call upon Him in our need and in our praise. May we worship in thanksgiving for who He created us to be … and is daily calling us to be!
Let your light so shine glorifying your Abba, Father in heaven.