Giving God glory vs seeking our own

 February 2009 

February has been a very encouraging month for us. We continue to get great joy out of our family. It is wonderful to be able to share and pray with them each day. During the week nights we often play games together, which has been a blessing to all of us.

During February we celebrated Rebecca's 21st birthday at Joseph and Rebecca's house with a group of family and friends. We are delighted that they are so happily married. They run a group called Transition in their church, which is a discipleship group for children from the ages of 10 to 12. They use the Quiet Time sheets as part of their discipleship programme.

For a large part of February we were going through the book of Hosea. We realized afresh how fickle the Israelites were. It seemed as if whenever God blessed them with material prosperity they turned away from Him and worshipped other gods. Hosea has been especially challenging to our family as we realize just how idolatrous and self-seeking we are.

Chapter 9, verses 10 & 11 were especially challenging to me. This is what they say:

10 "When I found Israel,
it was like finding grapes in the desert;
when I saw your fathers,
it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.
But when they came to Baal Peor,
they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol
and became as vile as the thing they loved. 11 Ephraim's glory will fly away like a bird-
no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

I realized afresh that we become like what we worship. The Israelites became as vile as the shameful idols or gods they loved. "Ephraim's glory will fly away like a bird." As I look back over my life I can clearly see how much pride and glory seeking there has been.

There is, however, a right glory that the Lord wants us to have. For many years, Kathy has been challenged about this right sort of glory that is found in John 17 and so I have asked her to write about it.

I, Kathy, love this passage in John 17. In it, Jesus says, "I pray that all of them may be one just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and You in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them, even as You have loved Me."

Here Jesus says that He has given us the same glory that His Father gave Him. And why? Jesus said that they may be one, as He and the Father are one. There is a human glory that we seek. It is the type of glory seeking that made Satan want to be better than God - a prideful glory. This sort of glory, seeking to be better than others, is the Satanic glory that separates us from others. But the glory that Jesus wants us to have is not like this. God's glory does the opposite - it promotes unity or oneness, "I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one, even as we are one." When we all share God's perfect glory, there is no need for the one upmanship of self glorifying that wrecks true unity.

We continue to meet with three other families during the weekend. It has become very difficult to meet on Saturdays and so we have often been meeting on Sunday afternoons. We usually have a shared lunch together and then share our blessings and Q.T's. A deep sense of love and unity has developed, and we believe that the right sort of glory is evident in this group. Because each of us as individuals are trying to go deep into the Lord, personal glory seeking tends to get laid aside and unity develops, and the Lord is glorified.

Click to read more newsletters