What and Where is Glory?

How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? (John 5:44)

This is a question that I have been asking for years, both of myself and of others. How can I believe? That is the whole reason that I have come to study this gospel of John so intently over the past few months, in order to not only find out what real belief is but far more importantly to begin to experience it at a much deeper level for myself more than ever before.

There are times when it feels like I am finally starting to grasp what it means to believe. But then there are many other times when I wonder if I am even scratching the surface at all, if I have ever even been converted at all or if I am just living a hypocritical illusion of being a Christian. I usually settle for the fact that likely I am in a growing process that is neither non-existent but at the same time is a great way off from being matured very far. I am incrementally learning truths about belief and about reality but my heart is both very dull and very resistant to absorbing many things that my mind gets excited about as I expose myself to a combination of the Word of God and the Spirit of God.

I began realizing that I didn't really have a very good handle on belief many years ago when I felt there was simply too much inconsistency between what I was supposed to be experiencing and the 'beliefs' I was taught that were supposed to correspond to being a professed Christian. As soon as I would begin to read about the heart motives that should be seen inside of those who were truly born again, those who were genuine children of God following in the example of Jesus and growing into His image, I would realize that I had very few of those motives active in my own heart. I might be able to 'put on' some of the fruit for awhile, but I couldn't hide from the fact that my heart was much more in tune with the principles of selfishness than with what I was starting to see in the heart of Jesus.

Even today, I can still deeply resonate with the words of Paul in Romans 7 when he declares that what he discovers inside is another law, a law of sin and death that is in constant war with the law of life in Christ Jesus. These two principles called laws are not just at war with each other but are both diametrically opposed to each other while fighting for the place inside of me where I define who I really am and what motivates me in given situations. This battle is so intense at times that I begin to wonder if I ever will know the real truth about my identity. The messages that I hear from the law of sin are so logical and compelling that they seem impossible to ignore. Yet the messages about my true value and identity that I sometimes see more clearly from the other law directly contradict in many ways the compelling assumptions that seem so logical from the opposing side.

So, what does this have to do with believing? Well, I don't think it is as unrelated as it first might seem. For the battle going on inside of me everyday is largely the battle over what I am going to believe about my true identity, particularly in relationship to my perceptions about my beliefs about God and His attitude and disposition towards me. For ultimately, my perceptions of who I am and thus how I am going to act and respond to others around me are rooted deeply in my beliefs of what God is really like and how He feels about me. I learned long ago that the way we react toward others always reflects the way our heart believes about how God treats us. And when I take that principle and apply it to my own situation many times it becomes very frightening to realize how bad my internal picture of God still must be given the way I initially react internally toward others many times.

But it is so hard to unmask the hidden beliefs of my heart compared to analyzing my left-brain, intellectual beliefs that I can much more easily adjust from day to day. My left-brain belief system is much easier to deal with for it can more easily respond to compelling logic, good study of the Word and input from others who have important insights that are helpful for my increasing growth. But I am painfully aware that the gut-level beliefs that are deeply entrenched and hidden in my heart are the much more important beliefs that too often overrule my logical beliefs when times of crisis burst upon my life. And those hidden beliefs are very often far more cynical than the cognitive beliefs that I have carefully cultivated over many years and I find myself literally terrified when some of those sinister beliefs began surfacing from time to time.

Yet I am sure that Jesus is far more interested in exposing the beliefs of my heart just as much as the mistaken beliefs of my mind when He talks about my need to change my beliefs over and over in these passages. While it is true that there are many mistaken beliefs that remain stuck in my head and need to be thrown out in favor of more truthful beliefs about God, the beliefs that cause the most trouble are the more subtle and hidden beliefs that control my heart, that drive my emotions, that determine my knee-jerk reactions when I am blind-sided by traumatic circumstances. God wants to change both of these belief systems and make them not only reflective of real truth but make them congruent with each other.

I am still trying to grasp the real message in this verse that is not yet very clear to me. I sense that Jesus is putting His finger on something that must have a great deal to do with my resistance to changing my beliefs, particularly my heart-level beliefs. And whatever that is it has something to do with where I turn to seek for glory – whatever that word means.

For the sake of honesty I have to now raise the issue of semantics once again. Unless I have it clearer that I know what the words mean that are being tossed about it makes little sense to press on to discover the deeper meaning in these statements. Without a reasonable comprehension of the intended meaning of the words involved it does little good to argue about what the rest of the passage is trying to convey. I have spent far too many hours arguing with religious people about topics that only went in circles and got us nowhere because we were making very different assumptions about the meaning of the words we were using. We might have even been trying to say nearly the same thing but because we held such different notions of what certain key words meant we often appeared to be taking opposite positions which only tended to trigger both of us to resist each others arguments.

I have been mulling over for some time what this word glory might mean in this context. Jesus gives some indications here of what He might be talking about. He mentions both seeking glory from men and our need to turn away from that to seek glory from God. I have visited this before recently but it is something that needs much more unpacking because it is such a misunderstood word to start with among most groups. I feel that it is necessary to know better what it is that we naturally tend to seek from others and that we naturally resist seeking to receive from God. That is part of the message that I am getting from this context.

Upon further research into the original Greek term for this word I perceive that this has a great deal to do with the positive feelings and emotions that we get from having our reputation praised or enhanced. That in turn improves our sense of dignity which is also directly tied to our internal sense of worth, of value, of relationship to those thus admiring us. I am starting to see that I need to immerse myself more thoroughly in a greater appreciation for this term for it looks like it may be one of the missing links that has dropped out of sight for most people like me who have been so jaded by misuse of religious terminology that too many words have lost nearly all of their meaning and impact on our lives.

According to this verse, glory seems to be something that we naturally need in life, not something that is only given to God. Jesus states here that we are to seek glory from God, so it must mean that it is not wrong to crave glory in some legitimate sense of the concept. There is nothing wrong with desiring to be admired, cherished, valued, loved, appreciated and recognized by someone else. But evidently the problem arises in how we go about getting those things and from what sources we try to get them.

The immediate previous context implies that these people thought they could get this recognition from being experts in the Scriptures. The surrounding verses mention several other factors involved in our desires to experience glory. These include love, life, the credibility of the sources we look to and our fear of being accused by others. That last factor makes sense when one realizes that being accused involves condemnation and shame which are ways of making us feel stripped of our sense of worth and value. Jesus seemed to imply that these men were starting to feel like Jesus intended to accuse them of something before God, so He preempted their assumptions about Him by identifying the real cause of those fears. He said that the very source that they were basing their sense of worth on – the writings of Moses – would turn out to be the greatest liability for them when the truth would finally be exposed.

But most important of all, Jesus lays out here that the only reliable source that any of us will ever be able to access to feel genuinely valued, loved, dignified and fulfilled is from our God and from our Savior, Jesus Himself. The whole reason that God sent His Son into the world was to radically realign our assumptions about how God felt about us all along and to reconnect our hearts with the only viable source of worth and reputation that can be found anywhere. Sin has caused us to look to anything or anyone other than God to feel alive, to be recharged in our spirit, to give us a sense of identity and life. But Jesus clearly states here that unless we are willing to come directly to Him to find these vital ingredients for our lives that we will only end up in a dead-end ally trapped and vulnerable to the final meltdown that sin and deception always produces in those who turn in that direction to receive life.

Jesus, I come to You to find the kind of glory that my heart craves and yearns for every day. I feel an enormous deficit of worthiness, of value, of love, of feeling cherished and connected. It is so easy to look to other human beings to supply those needs for me for they are so close by and seem to have the many things that I crave for myself emotionally. But You keep telling me that those intensely attractive people or things will only end in deeper pain, in greater emptiness after an initial rush of potential pleasure, and I will find myself only in deeper emotional debt than before.

Jesus, there is no question that I need to experience glory, to feel loved and valued and to sense more dignity in my life. I crave for others to think well of me so I constantly try to perform in ways that will get others to like me, to admire me, to value me more. Yet I keep hearing You say here that these needs can only be satisfied by a more dependent reliance on You, a more intimate connection with Your heart.

But You remain physically invisible to me and thus Your beauty and attractiveness have to be perceived with different senses for now than with my eyes or nose, my ears or my touch. I am always drawn to crave more tangible sources of affection and sensory stimulation, yet I hear You repeatedly saying that real satisfaction can only be found in the spirit side of life, that I need to learn to perceive You more clearly with my heart instead of depending so much on the more familiar physical world to bring me value.

Jesus, mentor me much more thoroughly in how to seek and receive the kind of glory that You are talking about here in this verse. It is easy to see how I too often seek glory from others, but I want to experience the satisfaction that comes from receiving glory from You. Train both my right and my left brain to more consistently seek the real glory from You, that brings fulfillment now and that will last me for eternity instead of grasping for the illusive and slippery glory that comes from those around me.