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Posts Tagged ‘Glory of God’

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Scripture reading: Revelation 19:1-10

Let me share with you very important truth: The glory of God is coming down to us and we are going up to meet Him. We are being raptured (this is the right kind of rapture) – that is, we are being changed from glory to glory as we behold His face. We are being lifted into the glory of God. In this glory, we are going to see and hear things which we have never seen or heard before. We will see clearly and walk and talk with those who are in the heavenlies. Brother John said in Revelation 19:10 that an angel came to him and confessed that he was one of his brothers who was saved by Jesus Christ.

In Revelation 22, another angel came to him, and John said to himself that this surely must be Jesus Christ Himself, but this angel also confessed that he was not, but that he was “…of thy brethren the prophets,” (verse 9). It was only a man who had gone into the glorious presence of God. God is saying that He is giving the glory to us, and that we are expected not to just receive it and say, “Yes” for next service, but we need to walk in it.

Let us read Ephesians 1:19-20, “And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

In other words, our power is in Christ. Galatians 3:28 says that in Christ, “…There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,” yet we know that there is “male and female” in the homes, in the Church, and in the world; and that male and female have to operate together in God’s divine order. There is, however, a higher dimension in the Spirit, when Christ begins to speak through anyone and neither the male nor the female voice carries the greater authority – it is Christ speaking. We are talking about children of God getting in Christ in order to get through the veil into the Holy of Holies.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, April 1997, pg. 13-14)

Thought for today: Let us meditate upon the glory of God that is coming down and lifting us up into the heavenly places. And let us remember that our power is in Christ only.

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Scripture reading: Revelation 5:8-10

The beasts and the elders in Revelation 5 had “harps, and golden vials.” When we look in the Hebrew language, we find that JUDAH means PRAISE. The harp is made for praising God. Harps mean God-harps that are praising Him. Many ask if God really needs us to praise Him saying that He is a wonderful God or that He is great and marvelous. No. That is not praise. You could say “God is marvelous” all day and all night and you would not spend one hour praising God.

Praise comes from the heart and heals the heart. It is an instrument of God to create the glory of God within the individual. When the angels in heaven praise God, it is like their dinner time. When they open their hearts to praise God and to glorify God for the things He has done and for who He is, then the glory of God flows in. Praise is a KEY that opens the hearts of angels and of men. When we apply the key to the heart, God flows into it. It is not possible for the devil to come in when we are praising God in Spirit and in truth. There is a contact and a flow of energy which comes from God to man when man opens up his heart to God and the enemy, Satan, cannot interfere. He has to keep far away. This is why God says we are to pray and praise. “Praise is comely,” the Bible says. It is not everybody who can praise. Your whole being must be attuned to God and to praise. There is a praise, and there is a Praise, and there is a PRAISE! There is high Praise and glorious PRAISE.

I remember years ago, some brethren brought in a thing they called “high praise.” It grieved me because it was the lowest form of praise I had ever heard. The kind that takes you down emotionally rather than up. It was the kind of thing you could see for years and years in some of the churches. People would stomp their feet, bam, bam, bam, and everyone began to go bam, bam, bam. Drums began to beat together and the people began to jump together and there were no words. Brethren, man cannot praise God without words. We must have words to praise God. If we begin to sing a song and we are only going by the beat or by the music, we are shutting out God. The only way to have God join you in your praise is for your heart to respond to God and to His Word. You start singing a song “I thank you Lord, I thank you Jesus” – a simple song without many words to it. “I thank you Jesus, for you have brought me out a mighty long way, a mighty long way, thank you Lord.” When I begin to sing, I begin to remember the depths of hell I was in and how God reached down and pulled me out.

This thought brings me back to a vision I had in the days just before salvation, when I found myself down in this GREAT PIT. It was hopeless. I could hardly see the sky for the distance; I was down in the pit. The sides were sheer and straight and I would fight and claw my way up only to reach a point and then I would fall back down. It was hopeless, but I was still fighting. Then suddenly there was a sound like a wind and it came down into the pit, swooped me up like a whirlwind and threw me way up on the side of the pit. As I clung on, still only half way up, another surge came and took me up and carried me right out. I landed in woodland where great big globs of honeycomb were up in the trees, and the honey was just dropping from the trees.

I remember these things as I sing a song thanking Jesus. It means something to me. It lifts my soul and the energy of God begins to flow into me, because I am praising God.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 1, pg. 90-91)

Thought for today: Let us use the key of praise to open our hearts up to God.

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Scripture reading: John 17:1-8, 22-26

In order to save man, Christ had to lay down the glory that He had with the Father before the world was. There was one time on the Mount of Transfiguration when Christ burst forth from the body of Jesus and the disciples saw the glory cloud as it shone through his body. They heard the Father speak from within the glory cloud that also enveloped Moses and Elias. But John 17:5 shows that even the great power we saw manifested in Jesus Christ while He was in His human body was not the power which He had with the Father before the world was, but much less.

Let us look at John 17:22, in which He bequeathed to us not the glory of the Christ in the mortal body of Jesus, but the glory of the pre-existent Christ, which He had with the Father before the world was made.

“And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” 

Our oneness in Christ exceeds all human union. So then, what is this glory which He has given us? And if it is given, is it received? The glory is Christ. Christ stands at the apex of a pyramid and we are all at different points along its side. As we progress towards Him, we also come closer to each other, but it is the oneness of purpose that brings us closer to Him and to each other.

The glory that we seek is Christ. How do we get Christ? It is one of those simple, yet hard answers: We get Christ by being in obedience to the Holy Spirit. Of course, we cannot be obedient to someone whom we cannot hear and we can only hear by the Word of God. Our first action, then, must be a tacit determination to believe the Word of God and to obey it without reservation. Some of us believe this part and that part, but not the other. When this happens, we instinctively seek other interpretations for the Word and, invariably, we fall into error. Once we are in error, we cannot hear the Word of God clearly and we cannot act correctly, thus we miss the glory that was given and we cannot be one with those with whom we should be one.

Let us look at the ending of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:24-26, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

The key in this prayer is expressed in the fact that Jesus is saying that we will have this glory in the natural and not just when we are dead. He is praying not for a glory to come where He will be, but “where I am.” In Chapter 14, Jesus explains that He is going to the Father and that He will come again and receive us unto Himself, “…that where I am, there ye may be also.” God’s plan for us is that Christ Jesus, Who is with us now, should bring us into the place where He is with the Father. He moved out of the place on earth and the Word declares in Hebrews 2:10 that He will bring “…many sons to glory.” The time is close when we will come into this glory. Pray that you do not miss it as the scribes and Pharisees did when Jesus first appeared.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, June 1991, pg. 6-8)

Thought for today: As we progress towards God, we also come closer to each other, but it is the oneness of purpose that brings us closer to Him and to each other.

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Scripture reading: John 17:5, 22

God’s smile, His good will, and His permissive will are all that the church seems to have been enjoying until now. But now is the time of the overshadowing, when the manchild church is being brought forth within the woman church. We are moving into a time when nothing but the perfect will of God will be acceptable.

“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” Revelation 12:1.

This is not Mary, the mother of Jesus. This chapter was written of the future and not of the past. Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Ghost and brought forth Jesus Christ, the son of God. The church is being overshadowed by the Holy Ghost again to bring forth the Christ in us, not in a physical sense, as with Mary who had a natural child, but in the spiritual sense, where we shall bring forth the fruit of the soul and not the fruit of the womb. “Clothed with the sun” signifies an elect and called-out people of God, who at last will attain to the glory of God as their covering. Covering is not only for protection, but clothes which they wear daily – the righteousness of God being a part of our habit. The sun represents Christ, just as the moon represents the church. This woman was clothed with the sun, and her footstool was the moon. The meaning is clear. It brings out the scripture of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:5 and 22,

“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.

We do not need ecumenism. The glory of God in us is making us one without reservation or fear of separation.

This glory which Jesus prayed about is the picture we see in Revelation 12. It is the same glory which hung over the tabernacle in the wilderness. The same glory Ezekiel saw at the river Chebar, and which Isaiah saw in Isaiah 1 and 6. All the prophets saw it, and Paul saw it when he was knocked down on the road to Damascus. I believe this is the same glory which I also saw in a vision in Greenwich Farm in western Kingston, when I saw the shadow of a man, cast by a great light in the sky, resting on the sea and on the land, and the voice of God speaking to me, saying, “The glory of God dwelleth in His people.” The glory is already given, and the church needs to appropriate it. The people of God is the only temple on earth now recognized by the Lord as His temple. In Haggai 2:7 and 9, there is a prophecy which is yet to come to pass, and it cannot be speaking of a natural temple, as there is none now standing which would have the approval of God. This temple, of course, must be the temple of the human body which God desires to dwell in, “not made with hands.”

“And I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.”

This scripture speaks of Revelation 12:1, which is the fulfillment of Haggai’s prophecy. The woman, the church, will be clothed at last, not in her own righteousness, but with the GLORY OF GOD.

“Upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

(Excerpt from The Pattern, 2nd edition, 1995, pg. 151-153)

Thought for today: We do not need ecumenism. The glory of God in us is making us one without reservation or fear of separation.

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Scripture reading: 2 Corinthians 3:18

The verse in 2 Corinthians 3:18 means that the more we see the glory of God, and the more the brightness, the light, the blessedness of God encompasses our beings, the more we see Jesus. This is “His face.” “His face” is the riches of His glory, the goodness of His nature, the blessedness of His presence. The more we see it, “WE…ARE CHANGED…from glory to glory” to be like Him.

Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” The purer the heart is, the clearer the vision will be. Matthew 6:23, “But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” We are talking about spirit vision and not natural vision. Matthew 15:14, Jesus said, “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” We are talking about seeing the face of God (seeing the face of Jesus) and about those who are blind and cannot see the face of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3:13-17, “And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” This “veil shall be taken away” when men “turn to the Lord” Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:4, “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” We are talking of the mind being blinded, for it is with this mind that one is going to see the face of Jesus.

John 16:14 and 15, “He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” It is the Holy Spirit that gives us this vision, so that we can see the face of Jesus. The Bible tells us here that the Holy Spirit shows us Jesus. He is the revealer of Jesus, so that as we walk in the Spirit, we get more and more the vision of the face of Jesus Christ, and we become what we behold.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 3, pages 164-165)

Thought for today: As we walk in the Spirit, we get more and more the vision of the face of Jesus Christ, and we become what we behold.

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