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In this study we will attempt to consider ‘the glory of God’. Our main Biblical reference is the great prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17. This chapter is dramatic and dynamic, yet it is so easy to miss the tension and energy in it. It is the final consultation between Father and Son before the Son goes to the cross via the garden of Gethsemane. It differs from the prayer of Gethsemane (which John does not record) in that this prayer unveils the divine plan in Calvary whereas Gethsemane shows the extent to which the Lord Jesus as man is tested. We will not be able to attempt a full consideration of the passage this morning. Our aim will rather be to show something of the frame in which this prayer is set, and the major theme in it, so that in your own study of it you may discover for yourself the beauty, majesty and wonder in it.

Before we start however we need to ask, what do we mean by ‘the glory of God’?

The Glory of God

When we think of God’s glory do we think of splendour, as in the vision of Isaiah in chapter 6 of his book?

If we do, then consider for a moment the strangest request ever asked of God –

^{EX 33:18} Then Moses said, "I pray Thee, show me Thy glory!"

The request is strange considering who asked it. Of all men we might have expected Moses to have seen already the splendour of God. He witnessed the burning bush of Exodus 3, observed the sapphire pavement of chapter 24 and had just spent forty days and nights in the presence of God on top of Mount Sinai. So the fact that it is Moses asking this question should lead us to suspect that the glory of God is not anything to do with the celestial splendour that surrounds the presence of God.

If we think about it for a minute that must be so, because all of the visible splendour belongs to the creation, it has been made, and the ‘glory of God’ must be something uncreated, intrinsic in God Himself. But what is it?

The reason why the question is important emerges very early on in John 17 –

^{JN 17:1} These things Jesus spoke; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee, ² even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. ³ "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. ⁴ "I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do. ⁵ "And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was "

In these five verses there are five references to ‘glory’ or ‘glorify’. Obviously the concept is vital to the Lord, and to God. We also have in verse 3 the definition of ‘eternal life’, the significance of which we shall consider later. The key verse however, upon which all else hangs, is verse 5 –

"And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.

Very often the major importance of what follows in this prayer is missed because this verse is taken to mean something like - And now, glorify Thou Me in Your presence, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the incarnation’

This would link the verse with the ‘laying aside of glory’ in the self-humbling of Jesus as set out in Philippians 2:5-8, and it would suggest that Jesus is here yearning for the renewal of that ‘glory’ following His suffering, resurrection and ascension. The text however seems to have nothing to do with the self-humbling of Jesus in Philippians.

There are two phrases in the verse which need to be carefully considered. These are

1. ‘with Thyself’ which can be translated either as ‘together with You’ (NASB and probably KJV) or as ‘in your presence’ (NIV, RSV)
2. ‘before the world was’.

I suspect that the reason why some translations prefer to translate the first phrase as ‘in your presence’ is that the second phrase although clear in its language ‘before the world was’ is assumed to really mean ‘before the incarnation’. But there is a huge difference between the expressions ‘before the world was’ and ‘before the incarnation’. The time difference alone cannot be quantified.

If the glory that Jesus prays for existed only ‘before the world was’ then it was lost even before the incarnation, and simply the return of Jesus to where He was before the incarnation would not restore it. That is why the other phrase in the verse is important. The literal translation of the Greek ‘with Thyself’ may in some contexts mean ‘in your presence’ but in this context it is more likely to bear the other translation of ‘along with, or together with you’ in the sense that the restored glory is to be experienced by Jesus and by God.

This is not just a technical point. It makes an enormous difference to how we appreciate the glory of God. We might I believe paraphrase the verse to read

And now, glorify Us, Father, with the glory which we shared before the world was.

The loss of glory therefore was a loss experienced by both Jesus and by the Father. It was a loss of glory that the entire Godhead suffered, and not just a loss of spiritual glitz and glamour (if you will forgive me for appearing to trivialize the splendour of heaven) endured by the Son when He left heaven to become man. If Jesus was serious when He described the lost glory as of the era ‘before the world was’ then it was already lost from heaven when the Son of God became incarnate.

What happened after the creation that robbed God of glory? The sad answer is that SIN entered into the perfect creation that God made and declared to be ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). We think of sin as simply that which robbed man of his blessing and destiny, but here we have Jesus referring to the entry of sin as that which has robbed God of glory. But how has God’s glory been affected?

While you are pondering that argument let me pose another question.

We often rejoice in the clear statement of John in 1 John 4 where he repeats twice that ‘God is love’. We find so much joy and delight in that picture of God. However let me ask why we have had to wait until so late in our Bibles to read such a pronouncement? In my Bible there are 1730 pages of scripture. These statements come on page 1701. Why is this statement so long in coming, and since it comes so late, how can we be sure that John is not just giving in to fanciful exaggeration? What is John’s authority for this claim?

The answer to this question and the frame against which the drama and dynamic of John 17 can be seen, are found in the incident we have already noted at Sinai.

^{EX 33:18} Then Moses said, "I pray Thee, show me Thy glory!" ¹⁹ And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." ²⁰ But He said, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" …

^{EX 34:6} Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; ⁷ who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations." ⁸ And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.

We have already noted surprise that it was Moses who made such a request. The next surprise is that God granted it. God said - yes, but you cannot see all of it, because you could not bear it all. We will consider later the reason why God withheld the full revelation to Moses. First let us observe yet another surprise in this passage. God had said that He would reveal His glory to Moses, and so in chapter 34 we expect to read a description of that glory. Yet there is not a single word about God’s splendour or anything that we might think of as ‘glory’. But verse 8 would lead us to conclude that Moses has indeed received a revelation of the glory of God.

The only description given is the description of the NAME of God, in such a way that the character of God is revealed. Then the penny drops, does it not, that the glory of God is GOD, it is the character of God. And as we read this self-description of God another penny should drop as well –

‘The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious’

This is the authority for John’s declaration that ‘God is love’. God Himself said it, over a thousand years before John. There is no higher authority.

Yet in a way our mystery deepens, because this revelation comes on page 132 of my Bible. Why has it taken another 1569 pages until John tells us what God had already revealed at Sinai – that God is love?

The reason seems to be in the fact that the self-disclosure at Sinai had two elements in it –

The LORD, the LORD God,

1. compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin;
2. yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

The Old Testament never managed to reconcile these absolutes in God’s character, in God’s glory.

Events very shortly afterwards show that even Moses did not understand fully what he had learned. In Numbers 14 we read of the rebellion of the people in refusing to enter the land and in mediation (yet again) for them Moses in fact recites back to God His own self declaration (as a God of love) in a plea for forgiveness –

^{NU 14:13} But Moses said to the LORD, … ¹⁷ "But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as Thou hast declared, ¹⁸ `The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations.' ¹⁹ "Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Thy lovingkindness, just as Thou also hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now."

^{NU 14:20} So the LORD said, "I have pardoned them according to your word; ²¹ but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD.

Even Moses argued that because God is a God of love He should forgive. So God has to tell Moses that - yes He will forgive, but that is not what His glory means. Yet God promises that one day the complete fullness of His glory will be seen in the whole earth.

We find a tension throughout the whole of the Old Testament between the two parts of God’s self-definition. As an example the only two books of the Bible to deal with the city of Nineveh, the books of Jonah and Nahum divide on this very point. The book of Jonah recites in 4:2 only the love of God while Nahum 1:2 draws only from the second part of God’s self-revelation, God’s wrath against sin.

^{JNH 4:1} But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry. ² And he prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. ³ "Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life." ⁴ And the LORD said, "Do you have good reason to be angry?"

^{NA 1:1} The oracle of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. ² A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies. ³ The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, And the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

The problem is that because of man’s unrighteousness – our sin – he cannot approach the presence of God to experience the glory of the Love of God

We often sing ‘We want to see You’ and we often pray that we might see God. There is also a principle however that emerges in the Bible, especially from the episode at Sinai, that God will not make Himself a spectacle for the curious, or the subject of an academic study. God will reveal Himself only to those who are willing to live out that revelation, and only to the extent that they are capable of doing so.

We can see from Exodus 32:32 ("But now, if Thou wilt, forgive their sin--and if not, please blot me out from Thy book which Thou hast written!") that Moses was willing to live out the glory, the revelation of God, but God in His mercy knew that Moses would not have been capable of bearing the revelation and what it would really mean.

That is why God declined to expose Moses to the fullness of God’s glory. God gave the reason – for no man can see Me (fully) and live – which we might paraphrase as ‘The man who sees My face will have to pay with his life’. It is not that God’s glory would never be revealed – but that Moses could not be the man to see and bear the revelation.

We learn however from Deuteronomy 18 that God later revealed to Moses that one day a man would emerge who would be able to bear the full revelation of the glory of God that Moses was unable to endure, - the reconciliation between God’s love and His righteousness.

^{DT 18:17} "And the LORD said to me, … ¹⁸ `I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. <sup>19</sup> `And it shall come about that whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him.

The need was for someone – a man – who could look God eyeball to eyeball and reveal the fullness of the character of God, and show, by living it, the reconciliation between God’s love and God’s wrath.

In John 12:44-50 Jesus lays claim to being that man –

^{JN 12:44} And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me. ⁴⁵ "And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me. ⁴⁶ "I have come as light into the world, that everyone who believes in Me may not remain in darkness. ⁴⁷ "And if anyone hears My sayings, and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. ⁴⁸ "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. ⁴⁹ "For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak. ⁵⁰ "And I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me."

Now in John 17 Jesus declares that His hour has come. The aspect of God’s glory that was hidden from Moses is about to be revealed. The Old Testament saw a God of love, but also a God of Holiness and these two absolutes in the nature of God seemed impossible to reconcile.

What the Lord Jesus has revealed in John 17:5 is that sin is not only offensive to God – it also damages God who is Holy (by robbing Him of the glory of the full revelation of the Love that He is), and that loss has been present since the fall.

To restore the glory requires not just the punishment for sin, but its removal. Can we now see that when Jesus prayed - "And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was, or as we have paraphrased it - “And now, glorify Us, Father, with the glory which we shared before the world was”, He was firing Calvary’s starting pistol. Let the recovery of the glory begin.

Jesus prays – Show Your full glory – IN ME - NOW.  Let the world see what God is really like – IN ME.  Bring on the judgement of sin – and the cleansing for sin – AND MAY IT FALL ON ME – NOW

Moses prayed – show me Your glory – but Jesus prayed ‘show them Our glory’ in Me

That is why Paul could write in 2 Cor 4

^{2CO 4:6} For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

That tells us where the glory of God is – it is in Christ. And Paul goes on to show the glory of God in Christ with a most beautiful word picture

^{2CO 5:17} Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. ¹⁸ Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

^{2CO 5:20} Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹ He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

To see the beauty in Paul’s vision we need to set v21 against vv17 and 19

V17 – man ‘in Christ’

V19 – God ‘in Christ’

V21 – Reconciled because Christ became (our) sin so that we become God’s righteousness

Through Calvary God’s glory is revealed as the character of God being absolute LOVE in absolute HOLINESS.

God is the LOVE that imparts the holiness to allow (wo)men to gaze on the fullness of God. At Calvary the damage caused to the glory of God by sin is undone by the payment with His life of the One who was willing and able to look at the full glory of God and live and die the reconciliation between God’s Love and God’s absolute righteousness. Jesus has looked God eyeball to eyeball and has shown us the wonder of God’s Holiness in the power of God’s love.

John captures the greatness of Calvary in the final cry from the cross.

^{JN 19:28} After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I am thirsty." ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop, and brought it up to His mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus therefore had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit.

I prefer to translate this great cry – it is PERFECT – God’s glory has been restored.

The Glory of God – why it matters to you, to me?

The Cross is the perfection of God’s glory, the door to the manifestation of LOVE – without sin getting in the way – hence 1 John 4:8,16 - ‘God is love’. That is what God’s glory, God’s character is to us today, and we can repeat – it is only because IN CHRIST God has reconciled us to Himself by giving us the righteousness that allows us to approach Him.

c.f. Thomas Kelly’s hymn

‘Mercy and truth unite

O ‘tis a wondrous sight

All sights above

Jesus the curse sustains

Guilt’s bitter cup He drains

Nothing for us remains

Nothing but love’

Just stop for a moment and think about the implications of what Christ has done. No longer must we be shielded like Moses because we would be unable to bear the revelation of what God is really like. Now, clothed with the righteousness of Christ we can come right to the throne of God and ask of the God of Moses ‘show me Your glory, Father’ and there is nothing now in the glory of God that we would be unable to bear, because all of the glory of God to us now is only LOVE.

But why then has not every Christian received an unclouded sight of the full glory of God. The answer is in the challenge of 2 Corinthians 4:6 –

⁶ For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

We all have the knowledge of the glory – we know where it is, but do we see it – because to see it challenges us to live it!

Paul had earlier in that letter told the Corinthians what living it does to a person

^{2CO 3:18} But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

When we trust the Lord for salvation we are saved – immediately and effectively. But it is as we live out our salvation and learn the glory of God, through fellowship with the Lord and by living what we learn, it is not an academic head knowledge, that we progressively change ‘from glory to glory’ becoming more like the Lord. For us the sin question has been dealt with – once and for all – and the full revelation of God to us is now only love – yet the terms for the revelation of God to us remain the same. If we want to see God we have to be willing to live out the revelation that He gives us. Unlike Moses, because of the cross there is now no question of our ability to bear that revelation, but like Moses we have to be willing.

If we are not willing to allow God to change us as He reveals Himself to us, there is no point in asking God to show Himself or His glory to us.

John, who recorded John 17, gives us a surprising challenge. In the first chapter of his gospel he tells us

^{JN 1:14} And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵ John bore witness of Him, and cried out, saying, "This was He of whom I said, `He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'" ¹⁶ For of His fulness we have all received, and grace upon grace. ¹⁷ For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

No man has seen God at any time – but the full revelation of God has come through Jesus Christ. -

Then in his first letter he wrote something that should stop us short

^{1JN 4:7} Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

• No man has seen God at any time – but Jesus has revealed Him
• No one has seen God at any time – but if we allow the Lord Jesus, the living Love of God to act in us working out His love, then we too can show God to the world.

The glory of God, the love of God in us is sometimes not what Christians, especially enthusiastic young Christians first desire. Sometimes our enthusiasm leads us to seek for the power of God to be effective through us. We want to do great things for God. On the face of it this seems a worthy ambition.

But take care. The history of the children of Israel at Sinai holds an important lesson for us. It has been said (and I give a direct quotation) – “Just think what we could do for God if we could harness the power of the Holy Spirit.”

‘Harness the power of the Holy Spirit.’ If we read carefully the story in Exodus 32 we discover that that is exactly what the children of Israel were seeking to do – ‘to harness the power of God’.

^{EX 32:1} Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron, and said to him, "Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." ² And Aaron said to them, "Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me." ³ Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ And he took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it into a molten calf; and they said, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." … ⁹ And the LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. ¹⁰ "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them, and that I may destroy them

In Exodus 32 the Children of Israel were not daft enough to think about throwing away the God of power who had just smashed the might of Egypt and destroyed the entire army of Pharaoh. They were certainly not about to swap this God for some lesser supposed deity. No, what they rejected was Moses, through whom the God who had delivered them had operated. Their problem was that they could not control Moses, and they wanted to find a means whereby they could make sure that this God was always available when and where they wanted. In short they wanted a means to control the power of God.

This is clear when we look at the language of Exodus 32. In verses 1 and 4 Bible translators have had a difficulty in translating ‘god’, because the people appear to ask for ‘gods’ plural, and when Aaron introduces one calf to them he declares this (singular) is your gods plural. The translators of the Bible have sought to harmonise the English grammar by either making the pronoun plural, (NIV) -

(^{EX 32:1} When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him."

^{EX 32:4} He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." (NIV))

or the noun singular (NASB). However the point is that the grammar is right. The Hebrew for god is ‘eloah’ and the plural form ‘elohim’. But the plural ‘Elohim’ has been used in the Old Testament as a quasi name for God – seemingly ever since God declared in Genesis 1:26 ‘Let us make man in Our image.’

It is this (single) Elohim that the Children of Israel ask for from Aaron, and it is this (single) Elohim that Aaron says is associated with the calf that he made. It was not that Aaron or the Children of Israel were stupid enough to think that the lump of gold would come to life – but rather that through ritual and magic they could induce or force Elohim to come and take His throne on the calf, but not as a throne, as a prison. Thus they would ‘harness the power of Elohim’. Then they could control where God went and what He would do – even if they would do it all under the banner of His name and having convinced themselves that it was all God’s plan and idea. But God or the Holy Spirit who is a prisoner cannot lead.

Take care that our attitude never becomes that of the Children of Israel at Sinai, who attempted to make a slave of the God who had just brought them out of the house of slavery and bondage, because we read in Exodus 32 the attitude of God to those who attempt to enslave Him. And God is no different today –

^{MAL 3:6} “For I, the LORD, do not change.”

So let us not seek to ‘harness the power of the Holy Spirit’, or to seek the power of God through us. Let us rather desire the power of God in us, working on and in us to change us, to overcome the selfish ambitions and lusts that would lead us into rebellion and war against God (even as Christians) – and transform us into the image of His Son.

This is what the Lord Jesus prays for in John 17

^{JN 17:20} "I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; ²¹ that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. ²² "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; ²³ I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me. ²⁴ "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ "O righteous Father, although the world has not known Thee, yet I have known Thee; and these have known that Thou didst send Me; ²⁶ and I have made Thy name known to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou didst love Me may be in them, and I in them."

I love how so much of this teaching is condensed in Dave Bryant’s beautiful little chorus –

‘Jesus take me as I am,  I can come no other way’

We have to start where we are – and submit our lives as well as our souls to the Lord.

'Take me deeper into You,   Make my flesh life melt away'

When we are prepared to allow the Lord to change us, and as He reveals Himself (His glory) to us, so we are transformed ‘from glory to glory’. We learn like Paul ‘to know Him, in His risen life, and to fellowship with Him now, in what He is doing’ (if you will allow that as a paraphrase of Philippians 3:10 (that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death)).

'Make me like a precious stone,   Crystal clear and finely honed'

The point about a precious stone is that it is transparent – we can see right through it. We might well remember the children’s chorus

‘When He cometh, when He cometh to make up His jewels all His jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own.’

This lovely chorus, based on Malachi 3:17

^{MAL 3:16} Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. ¹⁷ "And they will be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "on the day that I prepare My own possession, …’

tells us that God wants to make each of us His special treasure.

'Life of Jesus shining through Giving glory back to you'

We need to be transparent in order to let the life – the glory of Jesus – be seen in us.

It is not necessarily easy, but it starts where we are – when we come humbly to God and ask Him to let us see His glory – let us see what He is really like – and God has promised to respond.

In Isaiah 57 God declares

^{ISA 57:15} For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.

God, the God of glory – will dwell with and in us if we are willing – if we are of humble and contrite attitude. Yet take courage, the Bible also assures us that -

^{2CH 16:9} "For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.

Then the world around us is able to see God for themselves –in us. The Glory of God, fully revealed in Christ, is the power that transforms Christians when they in sincerity come to God and ask – show me what You are really like, and commit to living out the revelation that God gives. It is an on-going process, - being changed ‘from glory to glory’ – by the Holy Spirit. That is what the glory of God has to do with you and with me.