All tagged glorifying
Do you claim the glory of God for yourself? When doing great things that you have been called and gifted to do, do you puff out your chest and swagger as if they were about you? We are tempted as spiritual men and women to claim earthly rights over God's work when it moves through us into the physical world, but we must defeat that inclination lest we sin, and are humbled by God Himself.
We have learned to never stop praying, but are we sorrowful in our prayers? Our troubles often prompt us to come to the Lord broken, with great despair, and our needs hanging around our necks like heavy weights. But, although these are things we can’t solve for ourselves, they are nothing that our Lord God can’t easily solve, or lift from us. When we are praying before God there is no need to lament. We should rejoice to be in His presence, and we should be filled with joy and thanksgiving because as Christians our God defends us, and provides for us. What is our mood when we pray?
When we go through trials, and are suffering terribly, do we only give the Lord the glory once we have emerged from them? Do we look back on what has happened and glorify the Lord for having rescued us? As we approach Easter it is a good time to look not only on the risen Christ, but on the glory He brought His Father in every moment of His suffering. His obedience, dedication to the will of God, and unwavering faith in the midst of horrific suffering. The pentacle of His Glorification of God was most certainly in the completion of God’s will, but He also glorified Him by suffering on the cross, or as Isaiah wrote… “in the fires” themselves. How do we personally endure our fires? Do we glorify God in them, or only after they have been extinguished?
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and the new year will be welcomed around the world by many as they party, and celebrate, in drunkenness, lewd acts, and other rowdy and worldly activities, but as Christians we “ring in the new year” in a much different way. The festivities for us begin as we welcome the coming year filled with the Holy Spirit, and by thanking God for what He has blessed us with during the past year. We lift up our Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ, in hymns, spiritual songs, singing, music, merrymaking, and by experiencing the intense joy of the Lord as we look forward to what the New Year will bring. This is how we should anticipate the coming year, by being thankful for what has been, and hopeful in what lies ahead, doing all of this as the church bells ring in joy, and celebration.
In the time of Jesus, lambs being readied for sacrifice in the temple were wrapped in swaddling cloth at birth, and protected from harm during their lives so that they would be unblemished, and perfect sacrifices. These were special among all the lambs, and prepared for the sole purpose of atoning for sin. Jesus became such a Lamb for us, and He took on our sin; giving His blood that we would be purified and redeemed. So how do we look upon this man, our Lamb, in the aftermath of His sacrifice? Do we bless and honor Him in all we do? Do we place Him high above us with His Father, and hold Him in great esteem?