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Jesus spoke these things; and
lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has
come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,
even as You gave Him authority over all flesh,
that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal
life. This is eternal life, that they may know
You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You
have sent.
I have manifested Your
name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they
were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your
word. Now they have come to know that
everything You have given Me is from You; for the words
which You gave Me I have given to them; and they
received them and truly understood
that I came forth from You, and they believed
that You sent Me."
(John 17:1-3, 6-8)
For, "Everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord shall be saved." But how are they to
call on one in whom they have not believed? And
how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim
him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?
As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring
good news!" But not all have obeyed
the good news; for Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed
our message?" So faith comes from what is
heard, and what is heard comes through the word
of Christ. (Romans 10:13-17 NRSV)
I don't even hardly know where to start
here. These passages are so rich and overflowing with life and truth
and insights that I could spend months unpacking them in delight. I
have never noticed before the tight connection between these two
passages and how parallel they are which serves to amplify both of
them. There is a definite sequence in these passages that is listed
in reverse to each other that is important to understand as we learn
to follow Jesus' mission. And this all has to do with glory.
Fascinating with wonderful potential for experiencing real life in
God.
Paul is talking about duplication here;
duplicating the example of Jesus who was sent by God to bring the
real truth about His Father into a world immersed in lies about Him
that inhibits our trust in Him. This extends far beyond just
intellectual knowledge of facts about God, though it also involves
that. But only as we understand, appreciate and follow the method
that Jesus used to bring us this knowledge can we begin to see
results like Jesus intends for us to have, both in attracting others
to the real gospel as well as in experiencing the joy of the gospel
in ourselves.
proclaims/manifests God's name –
others receive/understand –
they believe Jesus and God –
they receive eternal life by knowing both of them. (John 17)
they proclaim Jesus in God's name –
others hear this truth about God –
they believe/embrace this truth –
they are saved out of the lies that produce death/separation from God. (Romans 10)
The root issue I see being addressed in
this process is restoring the glory of God – His reputation –
back to its untarnished brilliance that it had before any of the lies
of Lucifer/Satan ever started inciting doubts and dimming the loving
trust of any of His created beings. That is what Jesus talks about in
the two verses I left out above.
I glorified You on the earth, having
accomplished the work which You have given Me to
do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the
glory which I had with You before the world was. (John
17:4-5)
The work Jesus was given to do
is identified clearly where He says that He had manifested the
Father's name. It is this manifestation of the truth about God that
Jesus is referring to when He explains the sequence that comes to
light again in Paul's words. It is all about the good news – the
true gospel. This is the essence of eternal life according to Jesus
here, for to know them – the real truth about them – is to have
eternal life here and now.
I catch a faint glimpse of a very
intense wistfulness in the heart of Jesus, an overwhelming passion in
God's heart for a return to the good times before all of this mess
began. I have caught glimpses of this in Old Testament writings as
well but it seems it is something that is seldom noticed or
mentioned. But when I sense it even a little myself, it awakens in me
a resonating response of intense desire to see the greatest passion
and plans of God to finally come into full reality. And they will –
on that last great Day of Judgment – the day when all lies will be
fully exposed, all accusations will be seen by every being who has
ever lived as fraudulent and baseless, and most of all God will be
discovered by everyone to be righteous, fair, loving, compassionate,
forgiving and completely free of any of the attributes He has been
accused of harboring. Yes, you might sense one of my favorite topics
starting to emerge. But how God relates to the lost in the end as
well as all along the way is one of the most radical breakthroughs I
experienced in coming to see God in a way that finally began to melt
my own calloused heart.
I believe that this plan of God is
meant to awaken resonating passion within every heart drawn into
sympathy with Jesus' passion to vindicate His Father's name. It is
this passion of God to bring to light the real truth about Him that
was the secret that empowered Jesus to endure the cross, despise the
shame and do it all for the joy that He kept constantly before Him
(Hebrews 12:2-30. That joy will be fully realized when the Godhead
sees all who finally chose to believe the truth about Them come fully
alive and burst into flaming beauty as they are exposed fully at last
to His fiery, passionate, intense love. When Jesus sees the fruit of
all His labors to restore God's reputation, and He sees that
reputation vindicated clearly in the minds of every created being,
saved or lost – that is the day when the glory He shared in ancient
times with the Father will finally be restored to its full beauty and
even greater.
I also sense that this same passion to
vindicate God's tarnished reputation, His name as the Scriptures
speak of it, is what compelled Paul and all the other disciples to do
anything and everything to share the good news about what God is
really like at any cost to themselves with all who would listen. They
did not pour out their lives to start up a new church or convince
people of a list of new doctrines. That will never produce the kind
of holy boldness as seen in the lives of those early believers.
Rather they had encountered a deep passion at the heart level
resulting from a radical confrontation between their previous notions
about God and the real truth about Him as revealed in Jesus His Son
that so empowered them they could not remain silent. This is what
compelled those believers to turn away easily from every other source
of satisfaction, pleasure or interest to make sharing the truth about
God, the gospel, the highest priority in their lives.
I want this same power to surge through
my own heart and soul. I want to know the passion of the Christ, but
in the way that Jesus demonstrated it, by revealing that God is the
opposite of what nearly everyone has been claiming He is like. The
gospel, far from being a creed or list of doctrines or theological
treatise, is a living encounter with the only God who is the true
Source of all life. The really good news is discovering that He is
not the source of death, pain, suffering or punishment after all; for
all of these come as natural consequences of sin, not as impositions
from our loving Father and Creator. When this stunning truth about
God becomes clear again, the true gospel will again become
irresistible in its power to turn the world upside down one last
time.
To glorify God the way that honors Him
like Jesus did is to allow the eternal life flowing into us from an
intimate, growing knowledge of His heart, to so transform out lives,
our attitudes and our relationships that others will feel compelled
to question their own assumptions about Him exposed in stark contrast
to the power the truth has working in our lives. Of course for this
to happen, any who want to share this gospel must allow these truths
to transform their own lives increasingly. This is what Paul spoke of
and what God longs to do in each one of us.
Therefore having such a hope, we use
great boldness in our speech, and are not like Moses, who used to put
a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look
intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were
hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant
the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But
to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but
whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the
Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty. 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 from the Lord, the Spirit. (2
Corinthians 3:12-18)
Father,
please remove the veil from my own heart so that I may not only see
Your glory but may reflect it more and more intensely in its true
beauty for all who begin to see Your glory reflected in my face. Show
me Your glory, the glory Jesus had with You before all this mess
started. And use my life to be one of Your truthful witnesses so that
Your real glory – the truth about how trustworthy You really are –
can have its intended results in drawing even more to want to enter
into eternal life by knowing You.
Father,
glorify Your name, not only in Jesus' life but through Jesus abiding
in my life today.
