Glory

The Sunday Morning Session of our Spring Conference was spent in the understanding of "Glory." We have been working with the theme, "I have come to bring life..." and as we worked with the various themes it was a discovery of the kind or type of life the Lord Jesus Christ has brought to us. 

We are very familiar with Isaiah 42:8 where the Lord states, "I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another." (TNIV) We have heard sermon after sermon on how we must not steal the Lord's glory and that always makes us "feel" really good (or bad -- depending). However, there is a scripture that is in a very famous chapter that either is overlooked or not believed or both. 

John 17:20-23 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me that they may be one as we are one -- I in them and you in me-- so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (TNIV)

In our Lord's High Priestly prayer He clearly stated that He has given His glory (the glory the Father had given Him) to those who follow Him. We have been given the glory of God. We have become through His action in us --  His glory! 2 Corinthians 3:18 states that as we behold the image of the Lord we are transformed from glory to glory. How have we missed this aspect of His gifting? In the passage above it also states that this is part of the unity of being one with the Lord and with the Father. The glory was given so we would be one in Him as He is in us. 

When we receive the Lord, we become one with Him and with one another. The Father answered Jesus' prayer for unity when He poured out the Holy Spirit on the church on the day of Pentecost. How have we missed it? The life He came to bring is a life of the glory of God, the empowering of God, the breath of God and the love of God. We are one in His glory. It is accomplished in the new birth. Our God is an awesome God!