Glory to Believe

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)

Evidently, part of entering into real belief involves seeking glory that is from God. What does that really mean?

Again, the very first thing I am confronted with is to properly understand the words that are being used, at least enough to begin to make sense of what Jesus is really trying to convey here. The word that jumps out at me, begging for definition is the word 'glory'. I have spent time in the past exploring and trying to unpack this word before and here I am again trying to remember what I discovered last time.

I just went back and read my recent post on glory to refresh my memory of what I uncovered. That was very helpful as I now want to take this one step further and see how that relates to this most important issue of personal belief. Because I want to do much more than simply grow in intellectual understanding of these things; I want to really experience them personally, I want to see how I can enter into much deeper levels of true belief in Jesus and His Father through seeking the kind of glory that can only be found there.

As I began to explore last time, glory seems to describe something like a fuel that increases our sense of worth and causes us to become more alive. It is the kind of input that makes us thrive and feel more fulfilled and whole. Because of this, it is vitally important that we learn to seek the only pure Source of this fuel and learn to turn away from the many competing sources that sometimes seem to offer quicker results but only end in greater emptiness.

As I am seeing it more clearly now, glory has to do with worth, with value and with describing the attributes that make up a person's identity and character. Glory can be affirmation and praise, particularly when it is focused on God. Because we are created in God's image we are designed to reflect His glory. That means that we will only ever find real fulfillment, fullness of joy and wholeness as we come closer and closer to perfectly reflecting the character of God and His Son Jesus Christ.

Of course, that will result in our lives reflecting the very essence of who God is, which is love itself. Love is unselfish and other-focused. Love lives to serve others more than ourselves. Love is described in detail in 1 Corinthians 13 and is a description of what God is like. The expression and essence of love is one and the same as the essence of God's glory.

Sin is in denial that God is love in its purest and most complete form. Satan, the author of sin, claims that God is inherently selfish behind all His claims to the contrary. Satan has caused all of us to believe that God is looking out for Himself ahead of us and that He is willing to resort to force, intimidation, threats and even torture to get His way when necessary. Because of this our ideas about glory have become very confused and we fail to realize how much we need the real glory of God in our lives.

From this perspective I can now see that to seek the glory that comes from the one and only God is to choose to go to the only real source of love to find our identity, our true worth, and fulfillment for what our hearts were designed to thrive on. God created us to live off of Him, to rely totally on Him for value and purpose and to thrive in the joy of His presence. All of this is to be completely free of any taint of selfishness, for selfishness is the very essence of sin which is independence from God.

But we are born into sin. We inherited selfishness from our parents and have reinforced it through years of training and indulgence. We live in a world that offers to supply us with all sorts of alternate glory sources suited to fit any fancy we may have to feel good. We lust for all sorts of things and activities that will make us feel more alive or to have more power. Many think that having more power over others will make them more important and then experience the glory that they crave. Others seek sensory pleasure in attempts to feel more alive, often at the expense of others. But all of these counterfeit attempts to thrive and enhance life fall short of the real glory of God.

I am starting to see more clearly that sin is the compulsion to seek value, worth, identity and fulfillment from any source other than the only true Source. What we are really looking for is glory, the very thing we were designed to have all along. But when we turn away from the only true Source of glory to any other sources we find that our cravings have been perverted into lusts that end up consuming and destroying us instead of enriching and inspiring us to reflect God's glory of love.

I am now seeing more clearly the real meaning of Romans 3:23. All have sinned and have fallen short of God's glory, for the glory of God is the power of love – pure, unselfish love that is the opposite of what Satan has led all humanity to believe about Him. To seek glory from God is not only to seek our sense of identity from Him, to experience His love and resulting power to transform our lives, but in seeking this glory from God we will unavoidably reflect that glory back to Him which will turn us into authentic and truthful witnesses as to the actual truth about God's character of selfless love.

Jesus came to reveal the glory of God to humanity by demonstrating the totally selfless, serving attitude of the one and only true God. Satan has done everything he can think of to distort our perceptions of that demonstration and to cause us to believe all sorts of lies about why Jesus came to this earth. The Jews of Jesus' day had similar confusion about what God is like just as we do and Jesus was addressing that confusion in this passage. He was pointing out how dangerous it is to seek glory from others while failing to seek glory from the only real Source of glory, the One who created us for His glory.

In all of this it is also starting to clarify in my mind how seeking glory from the right source is linked to saving belief. I must embrace some level of belief that what Jesus said and demonstrated about the love of His Father for me is true and reliable if I am to choose to go to God as my sole source of glory, of identity, and to discover my real worth as a child of the King. But this must be much, much more than just an intellectual exercise or a doctrinal claim. For love, if it is not experienced at the heart level becomes nothing more than an empty sham denying the reality of what it claims to believe.

What I choose to believe about how God feels about me will largely determine whether I am willing to come to Him and seek glory from Him. Reciprocally, as I fail to seek my identity and worth from Him and experience His life-changing, unearned, undeserved love for me personally, I will not be motivated to come to Him to seek the only kind of authentic glory that can fuel my recovery and restoration from the enormous damage that sin has wreaked in my soul. But if I focus on His glory and dwell on His love and the real truth about His character, then my life can be filled with His glory and light and love.

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?

Father, give me this real glory that I so desperately need and crave. Make me a reflection of Your glory, Your love, Your character, Your selfless passion to serve and bless others. Do this for Your glory.