Venturing Into Greater Realms of Glory
When I think of the glory of God, I think of that which the holy people of God long for. We are actually created for this glory. There is an awareness in us that His glory is what we yearn for. We were actually created to partake of His glory in a right order. I am aware that the Lord said in Isaiah 42:8 that His glory He wouldn’t allow to be shared with another.
I am the Lord, that is My name;And My glory I will not give to another,Nor My praise to carved images.
This statement is not about us as His people experiencing the glory and intense presence of the Lord. This verse is speaking of who gets the glory for what God has done. This is what God said He would not share. Whoever gets the glory is the one people will look to. Only God can fill and meet the needs of people. If someone else get the glory for what God has done, then there will be a misdirection of trust and faith. People will hope in something or someone who cannot meet their cry. This is why God says He will not allow a person, idol, or anything else to get the credit. It would cause people to look in the wrong direction and put their faith in that which cannot deliver.However, we are allowed by God and strongly urged to seek after His glory. II Corinthians 5:4-5 lets us know that this is what we are yearning for. Whether people know it or not, the glory of God is what will meet the deepest longings and urges of their life. There is an internal cry and even groaning that desires to partake of and be in this glory.
For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
Paul explains that while we are alive in this body we are limited by how much glory we can experience. For us to experience the utmost realm of God’s glory and presence, we would need to have a new or resurrected body. These human/fallen bodies are no longer suitable to carry the glory of God in its extreme measures. Notice, however, that we are prepared for mortality to be swallowed up with immortality. Until that day when we will be able to carry the glory of God in a fuller extent, we have a portion of the Holy Spirit that is our guarantee. This means that the Holy Spirit we presently have as our Companion, Helper, and the One who anoints us with glory is only a small piece of the glory we will have.As a result of us being prepared and created for the greater weight of glory, we are groaning for this to be reality. The present ministry of the Holy Spirit is the assurance of greater things to come. This is quite amazing given some of the weightiness that people have experienced through the Holy Spirit. Charles Finney, for example, the great revivalist, actually speaks of his encounter with the Holy Spirit.
No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud with joy and love; and I do not know but I should say, I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings of my heart. The waves came over me, and over me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, “I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.” I said, “Lord, I cannot bear any more”; yet I had no fear of death.
Finney in his mortality struggled to carry the weight of glory that the Holy Spirit brought into his life. If the glory of God is this powerful through the Person of the Holy Spirit, as the guarantee, then what would the full manifestation of God be like? Paul actually describes a little of this to Timothy in I Timothy 6:15-16. He speaks of light that is so intense that one cannot approach it.Which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.This is the glory that surrounds the Lord and His Throne. Paul says no man has seen or can see this. To see this One means you would die. Our fleshly bodies cannot be sustained in such glory. This is what God told Moses when he asked to see His glory. He was told that no one could see His face and live. Exodus 33:20 lets us know that seeing the face of God is impossible for those of us in mortal flesh.
But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.”
The glory of God carries such extreme intensity that it would consume us. This is probably what scripture means when we are told God is a consuming fire in Hebrews 12:28-29.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.
As a result of the great power of His presence and glory, we should ask for grace to serve Him with. We are incapable of serving God acceptably without His grace in our lives. It is His grace in us and through us that allows us to partake of the intensity of His glory and still be standing. As Finney said, it was a wonderful love filled with joy. Yet the strength of it was so tremendous that it would wash away all that was unacceptable before the Lord. What an indescribable place with the Lord. His kindness and goodness are so extreme that we are changed into His image by the hands of a loving God. May we yearn for and experience greater and greater realms of His glory and power.
Robert Henderson
