I'm doing some research on the word 'glory'. I'm curious what ideas, images, stories, or words, are associated with 'glory' for you. What comes to mind? Anything will do even if it's just a single word.
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Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in getting up every time we do! And knowing who gives us the strength to get back up or carries us while we can't until we can again. "He" deserves the glory for giving us the ability to go on until we live together in Gloryland!
ReplyDeleteMy dad used to say that, "glory is reputation in the present tense".
ReplyDeleteHe would use the example of a famous quarterback that everyone knows is awesome. His reputation or renown is what everyone knows about him. When he makes a game winning pass, that's his glory.
That's always been a helpful way for me to think about glory.
The sports superstar analogy seems to make sense to me as well. When Jesus turned water into wine, he "revealed his glory" in his first miracle. Glory is both what God has and the act/process of us acknowledging that he has it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in 1 Cor 15, Paul shows that we will be participants in God's glory when our body is raised glorified. We all get to be on his team... and get to share the trophy of ultimate victory.
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ReplyDelete"Glory is both what God has and the act/process of us acknowledging that he has it."
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense since we 'give God glory' but he will be just as glorious whether we praise him or not.
And I want to research spots in the Scripture about us sharing in God's glory. I've noticed some of those. Hmm.
Thanks for replies keep 'em coming.
From a sermon I wrote for this Good Friday... Ambrose quote being the key piece...
ReplyDeleteBut maybe it doesn’t seem fitting that the Creator and Sustainer, the all-powerful being, the beginning and the end, the transcendent Presence, Perfection, should suffer at all. If God is all blessing and joy and fulfillment and love – how can pain be part of God’s experience? But let me quote a brother in Christ from the 4th century after Christ, Ambrose, who wrote that Christ’s suffering does not at all diminish His glory as Savior: “I do not think there is any need of excuse, for there is no instance in which I admire more his kindness and his majesty; for he would not have done so much for me, if he had not taken upon himself my feelings. He grieved for me, who had no cause of grief for himself; and laying aside the delights of the eternal Godhead, he experiences the affliction of my weakness.” (Calvin, commentary on Matthew 26:37) In other words, that Christ suffers for us serves to increase his glory and prove his love as a love that is beyond anything this creation could know without its Creator.
I'm with Jay K: the thing that's been blowing me away is not just God's glory, but the fact that he's going to GLORIFY US...
ReplyDeleteResurrection, rule, holiness...all that is part of GLORIFICATION I think...
When I teach on God's glory, I try to bring up "fame" as a way to "translate" glory into modern terms. Not very exact but a little helpful.
(Jason Hood here, met you at CUMC not long ago, found your blog via Abbye's.)
Jason and Daniel, thanks for your comments! Glad you've found my blog...
ReplyDeleteDaniel, amazing to consider how Jesus' experience affected him. So Glory is not static but dynamic and living. He is the Living God, the Trinity in dynamic relationship with each other and with us.
That makes sense with God's creativity, right? It sounds strange to say that God 'grows' because that makes me think of him as having to be 'less' of himself at some point. What kind of language can carry that idea? Does that get at something? Relationship is never used up, but not like a commodity is never used up, but like... what? Like a soul is never 'finished' being a soul? So God's glory can grow. What do you think?
Jason, good ole Abbye! The fame idea helps me think of how God was preserving his identity in a very confused (unholy) world in the OT. He needed to spread his fame, because people had forgotten the real God.
Also the shared glorification is interesting. Even within the Trinity each Member defers to others. "This is my Son, listen to Him"... "It'll be better if I go then I'll send the Holy Spirit" and the HS always wants to give us the "mind of Christ", and "I say and do only what my Father gives me to say and do" etc.
Now, we are caught up in that? Co-heirs?
What else?