Luke 22:20(NLT) says, “After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.” Our blessed Lord and Savior confirmed the new covenant between God and us, His people. Christ opened the door to this new covenant by shedding his blood on the cross as he became a sacrifice for our sins. During the Last Supper, Jesus took a cup of wine and made it an everlasting reminder of what God has accomplished for us through his blood. Our God is faithful. He is a God of Covenants, and He never breaks them. As we see the recorded history of His covenants in His Word, we can also see two other very important things. We can see the progression of both His demonstration of love for us and our gradual transformation into the people He always intended us to be. Jesus Christ is the door that God wanted and waited to open to us. If we are not doing all we can to walk through the door God offers us through His Son, then it is possible we don’t understand the overwhelming magnitude of all that is at stake. Jesus Christ came to make a more than abundant life available to us all. Without him, we simply cannot have it.
Life in the Lord is no ordinary life, and the problem is that many today believe that it is. The perils of our time may cause us to question the magnitude of power and authority that Christ has made possible for us. We should remember that God’s goal is that we walk in victory even when the storm is raging. There has never been a time in the existence of humanity when evil was not seeking to paralyze, blind, and destroy God’s people. Heavenly Father wants us to realize and trust with all that is within us that there is no equal to His love and power. Evil and chaos are perilous, but they are the backdrop of darkness where God’s light shines brightest. We have that light in us.
Life in the Lord is life in the Spirit. It is walking with the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. All of us get into routines, and the thing with routines is that they can make us forget about the “why” of what we’re doing. We can get to a point in our routines where we don’t even have to think much about our actions because our body knows what to do. So, if we’re not careful, we can very easily forget about the cup of wine—the blood that was shed for the remission of our sins. When we forget about the blood, we forget about words like joy, love, enthusiasm, and purpose. We just go through the motions every day. The thing we must understand is that God never intended life to be lived that way. He intended it to be a celebration of His glory and His willingness to share it with us through His Son.
Our Heavenly Father is brilliant beyond brilliance, magnificent beyond magnificence, and intelligent beyond intelligence. There isn’t a word in the human vocabulary that is able to capture the fullness of His being. The best word that we can use to express our awe of all that He is and all that He deserves is ‘glorious’. In like manner, the best thing that any of us can do to express our awe of God is to give Him glory. Anything glorious deserves glory and there is none more deserving than our Heavenly Father. Glory is the perfection of God’s nature and character on display. It is the weightiness of His countenance that cannot be seen with physical eyes but is felt with such spiritual palpability that it literally knocks us over. When God’s glory is present among us, we are undone and can hardly even vertically stand on our feet.
The glory of God is perfectly made manifest in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, we can know God’s glory through our powerful Lord and Savior. 2Corinthians 4:6(NLT) tells us, “For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” Our Heavenly Father made it possible for us to know His glory by allowing His only begotten Son to come to the earth and dwell among us. Again, we know God’s glory through Christ. And not only this, God has made it possible through Jesus Christ for you and me to be a part of His glory. 2Thessalonians 2:14(NLT) affirms, “He called you to salvation when we told you the Good News; now you can share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
You and I cannot define who God is. He has told us in His Word who He is, and it is not open to speculation or personal interpretation. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present. He is King of a Heavenly Kingdom, and it was Him, Himself, that chose to identify Himself as a King. He has no equal and nothing compares to Him. It is by understanding His supreme Kingship that we understand His sovereignty. Because of this, we can comprehend that His glory expresses His nature. This glory of God in Christ is power! It is transforming us, just as it transformed the face of Moses after he had been with God on Mount Sinai. Moses’s face had to be veiled, but because of Christ, our faces require no veil. 2Corinthians 3:18(NLT) tells us, “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 by the Spirit of the Lord.” Whatever we focus on, we become. God’s Will is that our eyes are so fixed upon Jesus Christ that the very power of his image transforms us into all that he is. As we look upon him, we can begin to see ourselves, in full transparency, with nothing obscuring our vision.
God’s blueprint is that we are transformed from glory to glory. What does this mean for us? It means that there is a response required. Transformation doesn’t occur unless there’s a response from the receiver of it to the cause of it. God has given us His glory through Jesus Christ. What is our response?
Give God the glory!!! This is the only acceptable response from humans to God. Giving God glory is our resounding “YES!” to all that He is and all that He is doing in us, through us, by us, and with us. It is impossible to honor ourselves and to honor each other if honor isn’t given to God first. To Him, all glory and honor is due, and we should never allow this to slip from our minds and hearts. Never be so quick to take for yourself what belongs to God. It is because of Him that we live, move, and have our being in Christ. Nothing we do in life will be as important, beneficial, and transformative than giving God glory. Every day that He gives us presents the awesome opportunity to bow before Him in full surrender, and to walk in everything that Christ accomplished for us through His blood.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Are You Giving God the Glory He Deserves?” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!