(tm) Day 6
Back to John Seventeen, Devotional
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 17:5)
The meaning of the word with, as used in the above passage, appears to be "along with": "Glorify Me along with Your own Self"; "Glorify Me at Your side."
- The Lord Jesus Christ is glorified as God the Father is glorified. The Son is not glorified apart from the Father. The Son is glorified as the Father is glorified, partaking of the same glory. The glory of the One is the glory of the Other. This has been true from eternity.
There are different ways in which Christian people attempt to bring honor and glory to themselves and to the works of their hands, hoping this will also bring honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and to God through Him.
The wisest choice is to seek the Lord Jesus and to share in His glory, to flow in His resurrection Life, to be, act, think, and speak along with Him. For us to seek to glorify Christ by glorifying ourselves, whether our efforts are in the physical or supernatural realms, can lead directly to religious babylon (man-directed Christianity) and to the False Prophet (spiritual life governed by the soul).
If we choose to please Christ by our own efforts, our works will be consumed when they are tested by fire. But if we live by His resurrection Life we become indestructible and incorruptible, because His Life is indestructible and incorruptible.
Let Christ be glorified along with God the Father. Let each saint be glorified along with Christ, along with the Father.
In Christ we behold all God Is; we hear all God says. We come to perceive the mind of God, the will of God, the eternal purposes of God.
The greatest fact of world history is that God, our Creator, became a man and lived with us for a season. Eternal Life was born as a human baby in a stable in Bethlehem of Judea.
Before God created the heavens and the earth, the Lord Jesus Christ dwelled in the fullness of glory with His Father.
In addition to being with the Father from the beginning, Christ also is the beginning of the Kingdom of God. No person entered the Kingdom of God or was born again until the Lord Jesus rose from the dead.
Christ is first in eternity and first in the Kingdom of God.