“Show Me Your Glory” by Steve Lawson
Let’s have a quick context to pick the most misused work in the English language over the past twenty years. Please do not think too hard about it because “awesome” wins in a landslide. I promise not to be the language police should I happen to hear you use the term to describe anything other than our Holy God, though I am tempted to do so.
Steve Lawson should end our careless use of the term when he writes, “If God manifested all that He is in His blazing glory, Moses would immediately die. He could not withstand beholding the full revelation of the glory of God. Finite flesh cannot look on an infinite God and live. It would be easier for Moses to look directly into the blazing light of the sun than to look on God in His dazzling glory.” No doubt nothing on earth we have ever called “awesome” can compare to the glory of God.
We must remember that God is spirit and does not have a physical body. God told Moses, “You cannot see My face.” Steve then explains, “The ‘face’ of God represents the display of His glory. God does not have a literal face.” The Bible uses anthropomorphic language to communicate to us as metaphors, so we have a better idea of the character of God. In Exodus 33 God instructs Moses to stand on a rock and God will allow him to see His back as He passes by. Moses “cannot look directly into the face of God and live. Moses can only see a partial glory – or the divine afterglow. He cannot bear to behold the full revelation of who God is.”
Steve then states, “Each one of us needs a closer encounter with this awesome God.” Instead of running from the Holy God we must run toward Him. We need to know the awesome better and more deeply. “No matter where we are in life’s journey, none of us has reached the full knowledge of God. We all need to pray this heartfelt plea (“Show me Your glory’). As we behold more of His glory and majesty, we will see more clearly who we are and our direction in the plan of God.”
“A growing knowledge of God enables us to live with enlarged faith in the midst of the storms of life. The only way we will be anchored firmly in the will of God and not be swayed by the turbulence of this world is by personally experiencing the far greater understanding of the character of God. A deepening knowledge of God will ignite our hearts with a blazing love for Him – and trust in Him.”
Let’s pray that we will know our awesome God more. God will answer that prayer. Pastor Gillikin