The Cross, The Glory, The Deliverance Series

the Cross the Glory the Deliverance

There is the brightness of Jesus’ face, and the cloud, as the expression of the glory of God.

“the miracle is not that Jesus glowed. It is that He did not glow all the time”. Chuck Missler

Veiled in flesh the godhead see, hail the incarnate deity, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel

Jesus was discussing the things of the Kingdom of God with Moses, the emissary of the Law and Elijah, the

Primogenitor of the Prophets. Peter mistakes the event as somehow place Jesus at the same level as these two. But God is not willing to allow that misconception to stand, nor to allow Peter to continue in his verbose ramblings. We can listen to Moses if we choose, or look to Elijah as our standard, or follow Peter as some kind of head of the Church, but God would interrupt such idolatry and would have us hear Jesus-the Only begotten Son.

Some pastor has said that we Christians often suffer from spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD. I, personally, suffer from DIS-Delayed Intelligence Syndrome.

Faith & glory are related

Moses-Let me see Your glory (exodus 33)

The glory of the LORD descends like a cloud

Isaiah . . . the train of His glory filled the temple . . . Isaiah fell on his face ‘I am undone (falling to pieces), for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips’.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

11 This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

Paul-sees the glory of Jesus, his appearance brighter than the noonday sun, and he is blinded and falls to the ground.

The statement of Peter in both cases is a misunderstanding of the nature of spiritual wisdom and the Kingdom of God. . . ‘may it never be Lord’ and ‘let me build three booths for you & Moses and Elijah’. He has misunderstood that the glory of God is seen in the sacrifice of His Son. The path to glory is the road to the cross.

Glorious Faith

The Weight of Glory

Moses’ face glowed when he spent time in the presence of God.

James-martyred shortly after Stephen-didn’t write about the glory, but John & Peter did

John

Stephen’s face glowed when he was proclaiming the Good News of Jesus (Acts 6:15)

And we are transformed from glory to glory

18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

What is it that transforms us from glory to glory?

Walking in the footsteps of Jesus toward the cross

Walking by faith, not by sight-

We miss out on this glory for two reasons: 1. Because we see by natural eyes, rather than by faith and 2. We focus our affections on those things which we see.

If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy. C. S. Lewis, the Weight of Glory

So, what is faith?

The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

“by prayer (& some manuscripts ‘and fasting’) . . .” (Mark 9:29)

prayer is the determination to look to God rather than man, to see the world from a heavenly, spiritual perspective rather than merely looking with fleshly eyes, to see behind the veil to the glory of God.

When they returned to the other disciples they discovered another deficiency-those who had not experienced the glory of Jesus were impotent to bring deliverance to a boy who had been oppressed by a demon.

Jesus said it was because of a lack of faith

And

That with faith, mountains could be moved.

Matthew 17:20 The Potentials of Faith

Trusting is natural. We learn not to trust . I wonder how many times we must trouble Him by our lack of faith that is manifested by our worry and anxiety over our situations.

Faith like a grain of mustard seed can move mountains.

By faith Enoch was translated into heaven without dying.

By faith Noah escaped the judgment of God that destroyed the earth.

By faith the walls of Jericho fell down.

Kingdoms were subdued.

The mouths of lions were stopped.

The three Hebrew children survived the fiery furnace.

Out of weakness they were made strong.