You, glorious
You, glorious
Glorious? Who actually identifies as that?
You may feel good. You may have a great day on occasion. But glorious?
Sure, there are glass half full people out there—you may be one of them—but who uses the word glorious to describe how they are?
I am suggesting we all should.
Yes, we experience struggles. We have hard times. I was speaking with a friend yesterday who currently has a lot on her plate. “Don’t even go there,” she seemed to say without using any of those words.
She could be grumpy, sour, snarky or snarly. She had reason. But, like me, she is aware of how God sees her— and how God created her. A woman who commits to reading scripture daily, she will tell you what is true. She is glorious.
What makes her glorious is that she is in a covenant relationship with God. This covenant means many things to my friend, but one of the most important pieces is what I just mentioned. She is an enthusiastic Bible reader.
Together, we did discuss the lectionary text for Sunday, March 20. Isaiah 55, our Old Testament passage, presents what delights some and surprises others. Here God is speaking through Prophet Isaiah. With an energy I believe you will hear, God says, “Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David…. because I, the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious (verses 3, 5 NLT).”
Again, I do get it. Some of us rarely—if ever—feel glorious.
So, what is this about? In a world where too much goes too wrong far too quickly (and in this world we all fall short of the glory of God and sin (Romans 3:23)), how do we have the audaciousness to assert we are glorious? Shouldn’t we be humble? As we model our lives after Jesus Christ, who, as our example, entered Jerusalem on Holy Week not on a charging stallion but on a borrowed donkey, aren’t we be in a place of servitude?
Glorious? Really? Us?
Yes. Us.
But we never do this glory solo. In fact, we cannot do this alone.
What I’ve yet to unpack in this portion of Isaiah 55 is that the Lord is promising us the same covenant he promised David. It is through the Lord that we are glorious. Specifically, the Lord sees us, His children, as glorious. As the proud parent, the Lord showers this glory, this shine, and this delight when with Him we live out the covenant He extends to us.
Smile as you read this. The Lord sees us with delight, joy and pleasure. Of course, we are not perfect, but the Lord’s perfect love aligns, corrects, guides and uplifts us.
And this? Well, this is glorious!
Let me be clear. The world may never see a Christian glorious, triumphant, or even successful. There are messy moments in this faith. There are hard times. Hurt and heartbreak do not escape those who decide to pick up their cross everyday and follow Jesus.
But that’s just stuff.
Any Christian who has been in practice and participation with Christ knows that the riches of this world are just passing delights. It’s not that we cannot enjoy these delights, and, oh, yes, there ARE delights, but this isn’t life. This life isn’t life. Here I mean to say that we living for the Kingdom yet to come, not the world that is. And for us this is glorious.
My call and my challenge to the Christians reading this is to live a glorious life. Call the life you’ve been given by God glorious. Live the life you’ve been given by God gloriously, and that light—your light which is Christ within you—will light others.
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