JOHN 17:24 – “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. “
THEME OF THE DAY: TO SEE CHRIST’S GLORY. Don’t go any further in today’s devotion until we do three things. First, read the prayer petition in today’s scripture from the Lord Jesus at least five times. Let it sink in. Really sink in. Next, ask the Lord to impress upon our hearts and minds the intensity of His desire for us to see His glory. Then give this question serious thought along the lines of self-examination – Do we desire to see the glory of the Lord with the same intensity He wants us to see it?
The question is of the greatest importance for the glory of the Lord, not only is it to be the chief motive in all we do, but the chief passion in our heart to experience. Why? To behold the Lord’s glory is to know the only source of satisfaction in the human heart. And this glory is in the Person of our Lord Jesus. We were created and then re-created in Christ Jesus to be in close fellowship with Him to know, adore, love, serve, and worship such a wonderful God-Redeemer. This fellowship will also be our privilege in heaven without the restrictions in this life; our weak flesh, our remaining sin, and the distracting tactics of the devil and world.
There is something else to consider about seeing Christ’s glory. We are to long for it not only in the future, but in the present. Through His Word, prayer, fellowship with other Christians and His church, there is to be a deep longing to experience Christ and His glory. In many ways, to see the glory of Christ by faith now is to be a foretaste of heaven and grow in its intensity. Yet, we struggle. A lot. Kris Lundgaard wrote an excellent book titled The Glorious Christ: Meditations on His Person, Work, and Love. He describes this beholding of Christ’s glory and not just for the future. Consider his words . . . “When we don’t think often of Christ as the God-man, our spirits atrophy and we forget the privileges offered to us in the gospel. We confess the doctrines of Christ but rarely meditate on them. In order to meditate on the glory of Christ, our minds must be disciplined to set aside the things of this world. Some of us are strangers to this kind of meditation because we don’t trouble ourselves to put the flesh to death. Suppose I claim to want nothing more than to see Christ’s glory in heaven forever, yet I never stop to meditate on Christ here and now. Does that make sense? My indifference to the glory of Christ that is revealed in the scriptures is incompatible with true longing to behold Christ and His glory in heaven. And why would I postpone the pleasure I can find in Him until heaven when He offers a taste of Himself now?”
The Christian life is not just about getting to heaven after we die. No, it is about knowing God through Christ as much as we can in this life with an ever-increasing desire for more of Him now by faith and soon by sight. Does that define us? May we continually offer the prayer, “Lord, let me see Your glory.”
PRAYER: Father, increase my desire to see the glory of Your Son now by faith and soon by sight.
REFLECTION: Pondering Christ’s desire for us to see His glory intensifies our desire to see His glory.