Devotions

I can scarcely take it in when I read these words, “And the glory which you gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one: I in them, and you in me; that they may be made perfect in one…” (John 17:22-23, NKJV).

Think of it. We have our Lord's word, confessed before his own Father, that he has given himself to us as fully and completely as his Father gave himself to him. He has given us the same intimate love his Father gave him, and that is his glory manifested in us. We have been brought into the same kind of special love relationship he shares with the Father; even more, he opens up the circle of love between them and brings us into it. We are made partakers of a glory beyond comprehension. How incredible that Christ should bring us to the Father and plead, "That they may be one with us!" We share completely in the fullness of God's love for his Son by being in Christ.

In a true sense, it may be said that God so loved his Son that he gave him the world. Did you not know we are God's gift to his Son, a gift of love? “They were yours; you gave them all to me.” Yet Christ was so in oneness with the Father that he brings the gift back to him and says, “All mine are thine, and thine are mine...” (see John 17:10).

Is it not comforting to know we are the object of such a love between Father and Son? What an honor to have Christ place us in the palm of his great and loving hand, for him to present us to the Father and say, “Behold, Father! They are ours! They all belong to us! They are the object of our love! I will love them, Father! You will love them! We will make our abode in them and show them how much they are loved.”

As we grasp this, we will be able to say confidently, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

I wonder how many of God's people today can sincerely cry out to our blessed Lord, “Glorify me with thyself! Bring me into oneness. I yearn to be closer, more intimate. Master, it is you that I want. More than signs or wonders, I must have your presence!”

When Jesus prayed for all believers, he said, “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word; that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20-21, NKJV). He was talking about a very intimate kind of love, a love that permits no distance or separation from the object of its affection. It desires a complete oneness, an eternal union. This divine love between our Lord and the Father was so all-important to him that he eagerly longed for the day all his children could behold it with their own eyes.

Glory be to the hallowed name of Jesus Christ for such a glorious thought! Christ is so overjoyed with the glory of his intimate relationship with his Father that he yearns to bring all God's children into heaven to behold it.

Won't that be something when we, the redeemed, are brought into God's great banquet hall to the heavenly feast and are permitted to behold the love of the Father for his dear Son and our blessed Savior? I see on that glorious day our Lord's prayer answered, when he looks to his blood-purchased children and joyfully proclaims, "See, children? Did I not tell you the truth? Have you ever beheld such great love? You now see my Father's love for me and my love for him." What a joy to know we serve a Savior who is loved.

Is it not terrifying to contemplate that Lucifer cut himself off from such glory? He is without love. He has no father. Surely, this was his greatest loss. It is the great loss of all Satan's children, to exist without a witness or sense of a heavenly Father's love. In contrast, God's children are embraced in oneness with Jesus while still on earth. God loves us as he loves his own Son, and this truth ought to give us great peace and hope.

No man can rightly define God's glory any more than a man can define him. Glory is the fullness of God, and that is a subject too high for our finite minds. However, we do know in part.

When God gives his glory, he gives himself. The one who receives his love also gets his mercy, holiness and strength. The one who receives his mercy also gets his love and all else that is the fullness of God. Those who seek the glory of God must learn that he truly desires to give himself to us, which means he wants us to enjoy the fullness of rest and confidence.

Before he left the earth to return to his heavenly Father, Jesus prayed, “And now, O Father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was. I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word” (John 17:5-6, NKJV).

Jesus was in the bosom of the Father before the world was. He was one with the Father, and that was glory. Union with the Father was the delight and glory of his being. He had intimacy, union and oneness.

We know so little of his glory. We think only in terms of cosmic power and splendor. We are such strangers to the real meaning of God's glory that we don't even understand what Jesus meant when he said, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them” (John 17:10).

Did you not know that Jesus Christ is glorified in his saints now? He abides in us in all his divine fullness. We are complete in him. When he comes to abide, he comes in all his glory, might, majesty, holiness, grace and love. We have received the glory of a full and complete Christ. We have an open heaven. Let us come boldly to the throne of his glory and make our petitions known. How wonderful it is to come away with assurance and hope!

Often believers don’t distinguish between faith and ‘The Faith.’ They may not sound like different things, and many believers treat them like they are the same, but they really are not. In scripture, we see a faith that believes in God for prayers to be answered and God’s presence to come down on us. Many of us only live with this kind of faith. “I have faith for the miracles and a revival in our country. I have faith to plant a church. I have faith to preach the Word of God with power and see the gospel spread to new places.”

Now all of those things are wonderful. In Jesus’ ministry, people came to him several different times and asked him for healing, and he told them, “Your faith has made you well” (see Matthew 9:22, Mark 10:52). We want that kind of faith in the church. It is what happens in our hearts when we let the Spirit move us and when we are believing for God to take action in our lives or the lives of people we love. There’s nothing wrong with this type of faith.

‘The Faith’ is also very powerful, though, and I suspect that it sometimes gets neglected in the church.

Often, Hebrews 11 gets read as a roadmap for believing for great things, the first kind of faith I mentioned. I would suggest to you that it’s not. Abraham never said, “You know what, God? I’m tired of being in this country. I’m believing that you’re going to make me a father of nations and my offspring will be as many as the stars.” He wasn’t believing for any of this, but God spoke to him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you…” (Genesis 12:1-2, ESV).

That Word from God gave Abraham the faith to go out and obey. He had faith — ‘The Faith’ — given to him by God in order to obey God. If we’re a believer, we’ve been given this gift. We ought to often turn to God in awe of his holiness and goodness that makes such faith possible. ‘The Faith’ is our confidence in what Jesus has done for us, our willingness to be moved by him.

Maybe you're struggling through some things today, and the circumstances are so far from ideal that you feel hopeless. I want to encourage you in this situation.

When I had just started a new church, we were put out of the facility we were at, so we had to move into part of this movie theater. Well, the movie theater was actually the perfect place for Easter because so many people showed up that our auditorium was full. I was really encouraged, thinking “God is definitely going to move today.” Now, you know at movie theaters they start the music around 45 minutes to an hour before a showing? I thought we would be fine because movies don’t typically play that early in the morning. Well, the times had changed for Easter.

We had the sermon, then I was coming to the altar call, and this automatic music comes up from the movie theater, and it’s loud. I don't listen to a lot of music, but the woman in this song is going on and on about shaking something in the club. Not exactly the music that you want rattling the walls as you make an altar call. I actually found out later it was Beyoncé. Anyway, this song is playing like it’s never going to end. I tried to make a few jokes. Anybody ever been in that place where you're trying to buy time? Finally, I gave up and just made the altar call. About 20 people asked Jesus to be their Savior with Beyoncé singing overhead.

God can do anything. We forget that so easily, especially when something goes wrong, when part of our plans fall off the rails. In those moments, we have to remember who God is and say with the writers of scripture, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17, ESV).

Maybe you’re in a season of a new beginnings, or you’re facing a dearly-held dream collapsing. No matter what situation you're in, I want to tell you that God can do powerful things through your life. He is not limited by your circumstances. “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).