Wrapped in Glory!

This week, in a solemn ceremony at the White House, President Donald Trump awarded the Medal of Honor to the widow of John Chapman, a U.S. Air Force technical sergeant, who was killed in 2002 in Afghanistan after a heroic stand to defend the lives of his follow soldiers.  After taking out two machine gun nests, Chapman was thought to have been killed.  A half hour later, as a helicopter was landing to pick up survivors of the fire fight, Chapman, though gravely wounded, emerged from a bunker to fight off attackers who tried to take the helicopter down. He was killed in that final stand. He saved many lives as he gave his own.  His actions and the magnificence of his courage and sacrifice were officially given ‘glory.’

To me it is tragic that the recognition of many of humanity’s most ‘glorious’ moments are for deeds done on a battlefield in wartime. Oh yes, I am beyond grateful for courage souls who defend life and liberty, but I am also thankful for those moments of shining kindness and love that are sprinkled around us like a ‘thousand points of light’ to borrow a phrase from another US President.

God desires to work in us and to give us a glorious quality of life. Sound somewhat exaggerated to you?  Take a look at this from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, NIV)  Paul is alluding to the radiance that shone in Moses when he came down from his time on Mt. Sinai with the Lord. It was so noticeable that the Bible tells us Moses had to cover his face for a time to avoid making people afraid, such was his ‘glory.’

The Spirit, alive and at work in you and me, can give us a kind of radiance, too. He comes to live, not merely with us, but in us. His Presence gives us 'it,' a holy splendor that brightens the world in which we live. Ever met that Christian with that hard to define yet unmistakable glory?  They love deeper. They serve with quiet persistence. They change ever room they enter, not with personal charisma, but with an intangible yet very real quality that is the Lord shining through them.

There is only one way to gain this ‘glory’ and that is to spend time with Him! We must not confuse leadership skills,  physical beauty, or remarkable accomplishments with the Holy Presence of His Spirit. He may use and bless those gifts, but they are not the same as the glory the Lord. What a privilege to be full of the Spirit, our ordinary lives marked by ‘ever-increasing glory.’  Is this your prayer? Is your desire to let His shine brightly through you?

Let me leave you with this word from the Word.

"As for us, we can’t help but thank God for you, ... thankful that God chose you to be among the first to experience salvation—a salvation that came through the Spirit who makes you holy and through your belief in the truth. He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News;

now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

... Keep a strong grip on the teaching we passed on to you both in person and by letter.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal comfort and a wonderful hope, comfort you and strengthen you

in every good thing you do and say."

(2 Thessalonians 2:13-17, NLT)

Let’s walk humbly with Him, honestly before Him, and seek to let the Light shine.

Invite the Lord to make you into a new, holy person;
full of His holy Presence,
which is full of glory and marked by exquisite joy!

__________

Oh The Glory Of His Presence

(an older song but one of beautiful worship and prayer)

O the glory of Your presence

We Your temple give You rev'rence

Come and rise from Your rest

And be blessed by our praise

As we glory in Your embrace

As Your presence now fills this place

© 1983 Birdwing Music | BMG Songs, Inc. Steve Fry

CCLI License No. 810055

At the core of who I am

Her tears were real flowing not from physical pain, but from the anguish of her soul.  As we talked together she spoke of failures and judgments, convinced by people in her life that she was worthless, taking up space in the world and offering nothing in return. It is her ‘reality,’ the place in which she lives. Can she learn to think differently? Can she replace the harsh words planted in her mind by others? Yes, not easily, not instantly, but it is possible.Truth transforms!

James, in his letter to us, reminds us of the power of God’s Truth.  Read it. "He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession." (James 1:18, NLT)  "Humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls." (James 1:21, NLT)  There is a wealth of life-changing information in those few words.

First is this – God gave us the gift of the Gospel message, not so that we would feel condemned, but to call us into a new place as His treasure.  The human experience is full of sorrows, disappointment, pain, and difficulties.  Oh yes, there are wonderful days of laughter, bright sunshine, and love and for those I am ever so thankful. But, surrounding us is a world of threats and the inescapable knowledge that our lives are defined by birth and death. What keeps us from despair or recklessly spending our brief days in an endless quest for some new sensory thrill?  The Gospel!  Christ Jesus announced the arrival of the Kingdom of God in our hearts and by His Resurrection declared to us that the grave is not our destiny.  This is the true Word!

So, what is required of us?  

 Accept the Word!  When guests come to my home, I want them to feel welcomed, to realize that I have anticipated their arrival. I want them to feel valued because I have provided for their comfort. My aim is to be hospitable and accepting.  James says that God has planted His truth in us, but it is up to us to welcome Him, to give His word a home in us. So how do you hear the Word?  When the sermon gets close to something with which you are wrestling, do you get angry and throw up walls, or do you open your heart to the Spirit’s work?  When you read the Scripture and the Spirit speaks you of some change that He desires, do you quickly move to obedience or offer excuses about the impossibility of it all?

Accepting the Word has the rich benefit of unleashing the power of God in our lives to ‘save our souls.’  This is more than just getting us to Heaven!  Salvation is not just future, it is for ‘right here, right now.’ The full meaning is that the Word implanted and accepted restores us to full spiritual health, makes us whole where we are broken, and allows to find that ‘life to the full’ of which Jesus spoke. The Psalm says  that the Lord “saved them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, snatching them from the door of death. Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them." (Psalm 107:19-21, NLT)

Have you believed the true Word? 

Have you invited the Word into your life?

Is the Truth shaping your decisions today?

Here is a word from the Word.  Hear it, learn from it, love it. "Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe." (1 Thessalonians 2:13, NLT)

________

Beautiful words, Wonderful words,

Word of life and beauty!

I am the greatest

Winston Churchill, the man who served England through the Second World War, had nothing but scorn for the man who was Prime Minister before him, Clement Attlee. Attlee saw Germany as a force that could not be resisted and tried to buy peace by appeasing Hitler. Once when US President Truman defended Attlee, saying “But surely, Mr. Churchill, you admit that Mr. Attlee is a humble man?” Churchill’s reply is famous: “He is a humble man, but then he has much to be humble about!” Churchill was a man with great leadership skills, a speaker of amazing ability, who’s ego was so large that he was often intolerably arrogant toward others.

Pride is a sin as old as Eden, a subtle thing that creeps into our mind and convinces us that we must defend ourselves, our reputation, our honor. As we lose touch with reality, we may begin to boast, feeling ourselves better than others, even believing that we are somehow above the rules that govern ordinary mortals. There is a curious twist to pride in some that causes them to turn inward, unwilling to attempt any new or difficult task because they are too proud to risk failure!

Christians are called to humility.  Let’s not confuse humility with self-deprecation. Humble people do not think much about themselves because they are pre-occupied with God and others. They are ‘self-forgetful’ not self-hating. A humble person understands who he is, is quite capable of standing up to bullies, can take the lead as necessary without making life about himself. I love this line from Jon Bloom – “Humble people prefer windows to mirrors!”  Isn’t that great?  The full context of that line is here – “Not thinking much of themselves means that humble people prefer windows to mirrors. Desiring to see the glory of God in everything frees them from needing to see how everything else reflects on them.”

Paul, in writing to the Corinthians who had been deceived by boastful preachers who really had no substance, nothing self-interest in their message, reminds them that he is a confident, but because of God’s gifts and calling, not because of his own abilities. "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God." (2 Corinthians 3:1-5, NIV)  “We don’t need to brag or boast,” he says, “because the proof of our message and work is seen in changed lives.”

Pride alienates us from others, makes us touchy and irritable, and makes genuine service impossible.  We all slip into it from time to time. And, in Christ, we can all escape the grasp of pride, discovering the joy of knowing that ‘our competence comes from God.’  Feeling disrespected today? Kneel and give those feelings to Him.  Had the credit for your accomplishments stolen by someone else?  Give it the Lord who knows the end from the beginning, Who never forgets.  

Make your prayer to be like Jesus.  The word from the Word today points us in the right direction. "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name." (Philippians 2:5-9, NIV)

Make me more like You, Jesus,

Make me more like You!