Glory and Honor and Power

 

Friday, April 29, 2022

Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me like a trumpet blast.  The voice said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.”  And instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it.  The one sitting on the throne was as brilliant as gemstones—like jasper and carnelian. And the glow of an emerald circled his throne like a rainbow.  Twenty-four thrones surrounded him, and twenty-four elders sat on them.  They were all clothed in white and had gold crowns on their heads.  From the throne came flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder.  And in front of the throne were seven torches with burning flames.  This is the sevenfold Spirit of God.  In front of the throne was a shiny sea of glass, sparkling like crystal.  In the center and around the throne were four living beings, each covered with eyes, front and back.  The first of these living beings was like a lion; the second was like an ox; the third had a human face; and the fourth was like an eagle in flight.  Each of these living beings had six wings, and their wings were covered all over with eyes, inside and out.  Day after day and night after night they keep on saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.”  Whenever the living beings give glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever), the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one sitting on the throne (the one who lives forever and ever).  And they lay their crowns before the throne and say, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power.  For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased.”   Revelation 4:1-11

Most of the scenes in Heaven stop me dead in my tracks.  This scene is one which captures my attention for weeks at a time.  I want to shout, weep, celebrate, and mourn all at the same time.  I mourn for my human inability to adequately do what the elders in the throne room accomplish – ascribe all possible glory, honor, and power to the King of Kings.  I shout, because I’m an introverted, quieter person by nature, but the images of Heaven’s splendor and righteous power in my brain won’t let me be silent.  I want to weep, because in the presence of the source of all power and righteousness, it’s impossible to not sense my unworthiness, stripped naked of any pretense of personal holiness in the presence of He who is the Almighty I AM.  And, despite emptying all my false claims to belong to God, I want to celebrate with complete abandoning of dread, or uncertainty, because the blood of Jesus Christ shouts from that throne that I do, indeed, belong to Him!

What a scene!  Every time I consider it, like Peter, James, and John at that moment of transfiguration on the mountain top, I want to stay right there, build a memorial, and never leave.  But the longer I reflect on that glory – more accurately, the more that glory reflects its light and power to overshadow me, and what God has created, and His grace that unfolds every bit of it for me…the more I realize the purpose for all of that splendor; I am His blood, bones, sinew, and awareness, and I must do the work of He who works in me.  I am, as are all who believe, like the 24 elders bowing before the throne, commissioned to reflect that power, laying all honor and glory humanly possible back to the throne.

For You Today

If you’re hunting for some purpose in a life that has turned boredom into an hours-long Facebook or Instagram distraction, put down your tablet, leave your smartphone in the drawer, walk past the desk and computer, and head for the prayer garden.  Do a little weeping, celebrating, mourning, and shouting in the presence of the King.  You just might bump into purpose for your life.  That happens a lot when you hang with the Author of all honor, glory and power. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com & Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Seeing God

Monday, September 1, 2014

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.  Matthew 5:8 (NLT)

Many years before Jesus preached His famous Sermon on the Mount, Moses had led the children of Israel to the foot of the mountain of God.  They waited while Moses hiked up that hill to receive the law of God (the Ten Commandments). 

All alone, Moses communed with God; but he couldn't see God!  He plead; Let me see you, God.  But the Lord said, No; no human can look upon the face of God and live.  You couldn't take it, Moses.  But stand over there in the cleft of that rock; I'll pass by while you cover your eyes.  When I've passed you'll catch a glimpse of my glory.

What Moses wanted we all want; we express it differently.  We say we want to know the secrets of life or we want to know our destiny.  Scientists work to uncover the mystery of our beginnings.  It all comes down to the inner desire of human beings to see God; we want to know our Creator.  We want to know what He is like; we want to know what makes us part of Him. 

There is something inside all of us that needs assurance that all is well between the God who made us, and our own souls.  Man has always sought this, and nothing but a genuine encounter with God will satisfy this need.  That’s why Moses went to the burning bush.  This is why the account of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration endures to this day.  The praise of man, perfect health and wealth, or any power in the universe will not take the place of really knowing God.

Many hundreds of years after Moses, Jesus and His disciples gathered on the mountain.  He pointed the way to this encounter with God. 

BUT!  

There was something offered that day for which nobody bargained; when Jesus said, see God, His word meant much more than just a casual sighting.  Jesus said, optomai, which means to gaze, wide-eyed, intensely, comprehending.  Jesus told the disciples on that mountain that they would see and understand and become friends with God. 

Our Lord promised seeing God this way and He revealed the way.  He said seeing, or knowing God follows cleansing of the heart.  In Greek “heart” is kardia; in Latin cor, meaning center.   Jesus taught that a totally cleansed center of a person's being was the way to an encounter with God.

J.B. Phillips translates this beatitude:  Happy are the utterly sincere, for they will see God.  The Greeks used this word to describe wine that had been filtered to remove impurities; unadulterated. 

Have you ever felt that clean?  

The apostle John was at the Mount of Transfiguration that day.  Later, after the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus – after decades of reflection and walking with Christ in success and failure, weakness and strength, John wrote down the key to it all when it comes to seeing God. 

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.  1 John 1:9 (NLT)

This isn’t just how to feel clean; this is what makes you every bit clean before God.  To open your life to God, open your “heart” and all that you are at the center of everything that makes you who you are, is to make the life of God open to your heart.  And that’s what your heart has been longing-for. 

For You, Today…

Have you seen God lately?

That mountain isn’t far away.  In fact it’s anywhere you are, when, in your heart you take up the kneeling position towards God. 

His cleansing isn’t far away, or at the end of some great quest; it is as near as your heart and lips.

The next step isn’t a step at all…just kneel before Him; offer Him your heart. 

Give Him you!