Prepare for glory...

I’m a guy, so I like movies like “Patton” and “300.” All real, red-blooded, American men like movies about men who wreak havoc and domination on their opponents; and do it for causes that are just, but mostly for the glory.

Glory is something intangible; there is no one word that describes it, and no sequence of words that can completely explain it. To understand glory one must see it, to understand glory YOU must experience it and when you do, there’s no mistaking it.

We love glory, because glory is what we were created for. Our Creator made us to be this way because he loves glory even more than we do.

“And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” John 17:3-5

That’s Jesus talking to his father mere hours before he atoned for the sins of the world. I think it’s safe to say that Jesus’ primary motivation for redeeming the world was and is glory; but even for Jesus it’s not about his own glory, it’s about the glory of the Father.

I think that’s where we miss it. Glory is something that we’re wired up to love, something that God has used for all of eternity as motivation. The problem is incurred when we forget that only God possesses intrinsic glory, and that all our glory is merely a reflection of what has originated with the father. We strive to create our own glory through worldly successes and in doing so make ourselves the little gods of our little universes settling for emaciated, emasculated glory that cannot sustain or reproduce itself. This is not the glory we were created for.

We were created to reflect God’s ultimate, all sustaining glory. The sort of glory that is not taken away through sickness, bankruptcy, death, or failed relationships; it is revealed in this all the more in these struggles as we are immersed in the grace of our Creator. This glory is not fleeting, but eternal throughout all the ages, promising its presence with us for all of time. As Christians we will experience complete glory with God forever. So, in the words of the great Leonidas: “Prepare for glory!”