Exodus 33:18-19 “Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” This episode talks about God's Glory and includes a word or prophecy given to my prayer group about God's glory and what in intwined with it. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
God’s Glory
Exodus 33:18-19 “Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.”
Do you know what I love about Moses? He wasn’t afraid to ask God for things. Do you ever feel like you don’t want to ask God for something? Do you feel as though you don’t deserve anything so why ask God? Or maybe you wonder, “who am I to ask this of God?” All these feelings have merit. We aren’t really worthy of most of what we ask for. Well, we aren’t worthy in our own right. However, God made us in His likeness and image. I try to remember this when that question comes up in my head. When I ask myself, “Who are you, that you can ask God for this or that?” I answer myself, I am a child of God, made in His likeness and image. Moses knew He wasn’t worthy of this special treatment and yet He still asked God for things all the time. I think we would all like to see the Glory of the Lord, yet would we think to ask God for it? Moses did. He wasn’t afraid to ask. Well, maybe he was afraid, but he asked anyway. Either way, he asked and because he asked he got to see the goodness pass before him, what a reward for his faithfulness.
I think this passage stood out to me today because I had a discernment meeting today and one of the words of prophecy that we were discerning was about God’s glory. It was interesting and something I did not know so I though I would pass it along to all of you as well. Here is what the Lord said, “My children, I desire to share my glory with you. But my glory and obedient suffering go together. They are intwined. Both give life, both are beautiful. Can you enter into my glory? Can you obediently enter into the suffering that you share with me? Come, come enter in, be not afraid, I am your strength, I am your joy, I am your help.” Isn’t that powerful? When I think of glory, I don’t think of obedient suffering. Actually, I am not sure I ever think of obedient suffering. I don’t know that I knew that was something we were called to. I mean, I guess if I really think about it I have heard that we are called into suffering with the Lord, but it is not something I think about a lot.
As I write that I am thinking how lucky I am that I don’t think about suffering a lot. I know a lot of people that suffer daily. They have chronic pain that they can’t escape from, or they are suffering from anxiety on a daily basis. I am thankful that I am not suffering on a daily basis. I pray for everyone that is suffering. I think this word of prophecy puts suffering into a whole new light. The Lord says that His glory and obedient suffering go together. He said they both give life and both are beautiful. I am going to be honest with you, I don’t understand this. This is something I will need to ponder and pray about. How does obedient suffering give life? How is suffering beautiful? I know plenty of people that are suffering and it doesn’t feel beautiful to them. It feels hard, it feel frustrating, it feels overwhelming. How is it beautiful? Today is not one of those days where I can give you the explanation that helps you to understand. I myself don’t understand. However, I did think it was important to share this word with you because I know some of us needed to hear it.
I guess there are a couple of things we would need to understand to grasp what the Lord is saying in His word. First, what is His glory? He is asking if we can enter into His glory, how can we answer this if we don’t know what His glory is? When looking up what is God’s Glory I found an article Titled What is God’s Glory by Aaron Armstrong, (Click Here for article) that talked about how God’s glory generally refers to three things. The first is connected to what God does, His actions the world. The second has to do with God’s reputation. The third has to do with he beauty of His very being. When God is calling us into His glory, he is calling us to a deeper understanding of his ways and for us to know and love Him, to point others to the good He has done, and to give thanks to him for how He is working in us and through us for His glory and our good. If this is what God is calling us to do, then it makes it a little easier to answer the question. This is definitely something to pray on. We could ask God if this is what He means by entering into His glory? I would happily, and I do, seek to understand His ways, I do love Him, I try to point others towards Him, and I do thank Him. How about you? Are you trying to seek God’s glory? Now that you know He wants to share His glory with you, will you allow that to change you? Will you try harder to seek His glory now that you know He wants to share it with you?
The next part of His statement might be the part where some of us get stuck. His glory intwined with obedient suffering. This is perhaps the more difficult question. When He asks us if we can enter into His glory, we can probably answer yes somewhat easily as it doesn’t require too much from us. We can seek the Lord, love the Lord, spread His messages and be grateful to the Lord, without a whole lot of action on our part. We can give ourself grace knowing that we have the desire to enter into His glory, so He will help us. We aren’t perfect and He knows that so He will help us get to where we need to be. However, then He asks us, “Can you obediently enter into the suffering that you share with me?” This is where we pull back, or at least I feel the urge to pull back. Obediently enter into suffering, no thank you. Is there some way around this part? Can I bask in God’s glory without the suffering? That would be great, but according to this word, no, that is not possible. The two go hand and hand. You can’t have one without the other.
So, why are we so reluctant to obediently enter into suffering? I think that is pretty self explanatory, who wants to suffer? Suffering is not fun and can be very overwhelming. I think this is why the Lord gave us the second half of His word. He didn’t just ask us to enter into suffering and then end there. He said, “Can you obediently enter into the suffering that you share with me? Come, come enter in, be not afraid, I am your strength, I am your joy, I am your help.” One thing I just notice when I reread what He said was that He said can you obediently enter into the suffering that you share with me? He is not asking us to suffer along, He would share in our suffering. That is not a small thing. Sometimes we can read a statement and just gloss over it. It doesn’t really register in our minds. This is something we should let register. God will be there with us in our suffering. He will share in our suffering. That is something to write down somewhere to help remind you when you are in the middle of suffering. You are not alone!
Then we get to his last line in the words that He gave us. Come, come enter in, do not be afraid, I am your strength, I am your joy, I am your help. Not only is God with us, but he is providing us with strength, joy and help along the way. I think we all know that God provides us strength when we are suffering, I hope we have all felt that strength at one point or another. I think we can all agree that He provides us help, this is not really news to us. However, did you know He also provides joy when you are suffering? If you haven’t felt any joy when you are suffering, you are not alone. Suffering is hard and finding joy while you are in it is difficult. The great part is that god is providing the joy, you don’t have to. You do have to look for it though. If you seek joy in the suffering you will find it. God will provide the joy, you just have to look for it. Maybe you find joy in the friend that brought you a coffee today, or that meeting that got canceled and now you get to have 30 minutes of down time. Whatever it is, I promise if you start looking for joy in the suffering, God will provide it. He always keeps His word.
I am going to leave you with God’s words today as I would love for everyone to spend some time talking with the Lord today and asking Him to show you what these words mean for you in your life? What is He trying to tell you personally with this message? Yes, God can speak personally to each one of us, with the same message. It’s amazing and wonderful. If you ask the Lord, how this applies to you in your specific circumstances, He will answer.
“My children, I desire to share my glory with you. But my glory and obedient suffering go together. They are intwined. Both give life, both are beautiful. Can you enter into my glory? Can you obediently enter into the suffering that you share with me? Come, come enter in, be not afraid, I am your strength, I am your joy, I am your help.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to understand how your amazing words to us today apply to our individual lives. Help us to gain a deeper understanding of what these words mean. Lord, we love you and we want to enter into your glory and we want to be obedient and yet we don’t really want to enter into suffering. Help us to understand why it is so important to enter into suffering with you. Help us to not be afraid. Help us to believe that you will give us strength, help and joy. If we are already suffering, help us to find they joy you are giving us. Lord you are amazing, you are so great to give us these words. It is amazing that you are still showing up after all these years and after all we have done. We love you so much and are so grateful for all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!