Monday, May 29, 2017

TO KNOW THE GLORY - Jesus is filled with and surrounded by the glory and all that it is. All life. All goodness. He is untouchable by death ever again. He walks in all authority both in heaven and in earth with all spiritual and physical authority. Everything that man has and everything that God has all rolled up into one Being with the glory of God flowing in His veins—that's Jesus.

To Know the 
Glory

Written by Kenneth Copeland
Listen, my friend. You have an anointing in you that's the Anointing of Jesus, and it is crying out for the glory.
There's something on the inside of you that cries for the glory of God.
Within the spirit of every born-again child of God, there is a divine hunger. That hunger cannot be satisfied either by the things of this world or by the theologies of religion. 
It is not a desire that fades with time. On the contrary, the longer we walk with God, the stronger it grows. 
I remember a time some years ago when Oral Roberts, my father in ministry and one of the men of God I esteem most highly, invited Gloria and me into his living room, sat us down on the carpet with him and said, "Teach me what you have learned about faith. I'm the hungriest man for God you've ever seen." 
Brother Roberts had known God intimately for many years, yet something in him craved more.
The Apostle Paul was the same way.
He walked in more revelation knowledge than any man except Jesus Himself.
Yet when he wrote his Philippian Partners, he expressed a spiritual hunger that was so powerful it completely overshadowed everything else in his life.
He wrote:
“... I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ [the Anointed] Jesus my Lord [and His anointing]: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing],
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing], the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection....” (Philippians 3:8-10)
When you read these words, you can see exactly what Paul desired.
It's the same thing Brother Roberts desired. It's the same thing I long for—more and more. Every believer hungers for it—whether he or she realizes it or not. 
Paul yearned for deeper revelation of the Anointed One and His Anointing ... and to know the power of His Resurrection. 
Look again at that last phrase, the power of His resurrection.
If you're like me, you've read it hundreds of times assuming you understood what it meant.
But if you'll study it with me for the next few moments, I believe you'll see something about it so thrilling you'll want to run around the house a couple of times. 
You'll see what the power of His Resurrection truly is! 
Romans 6 sheds important light on it. There, the Apostle Paul writes: 
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing] were baptized into his death? Therefore are we buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing] was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4)
According to those verses, Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of God. So the power of His Resurrection is actually the glory.
Insert that truth into Philippians 3:10, and you'll see that means Paul's burning desire was to know Jesus, the Anointed One and His Anointing ... and to know the glory of God! 
A Glimpse of the Glory 
"OK, Brother Copeland," you may say, "that's interesting, but I'm not excited enough to start running around the house yet." 
That's because you haven't yet received a revelation of the glory. But once you do, you'll never get over it.
The glory of God is the most awe-inspiring subject in the Bible. It's so big that you have to read the Old and New Testaments front to back to begin to get insight into it.
Of course, we can't do that here but we can hit some highlights. Then you can go back and study it more yourself. 
One of the first glimpses the Bible gives us of what the glory actually is can be found in Exodus 33:18-19.
There Moses cried out to God: "I beseech thee, show me thy glory."
In response, God said, "I will make all my goodness pass before thee." 
In other words, God's glory is His goodness. 
Usually, when we think about goodness, we don't think of it as an extremely powerful thing, but the goodness of God is goodness in its ultimate state.
It is far, far better than the worst bad there ever was. It is so much greater than evil that when God's goodness is manifested, it totally annihilates evil. 
The goodness of God is so powerful and far reaching, it's beyond the grasp of the finite mind.
God's goodness is so full of life that when God opened His mouth and goodness-filled words came from His innermost being, it created a universe so wonderful that it's beyond the mind of man to comprehend.
There wasn't any bad in that universe at all. It was totally good! 
When the tangible force of God's goodness makes an appearance, it's called the glory of God.
Throughout history, prophets and saints have seen the manifestation of the glory and tried to describe it.
Zechariah likened the appearance of the glory to that of "bright clouds," and his description must be accurate because we see it repeated throughout the Bible (Zechariah  10:1). 
It was the bright, fiery cloud of God's glory that led the Israelites through the wilderness toward the Promised Land (Exodus 16:10).
It was the bright cloud of God's glory that shown down on the shepherds the night Jesus was born (Luke 2:9).
It was the bright cloud of the glory that overshadowed Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
It was the bright cloud of God's glory that appeared to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. The power of it knocked him flat on his back, and it was so brilliant that it blinded him for several days (Acts 9). 
There's so much brightness and power in God's glory that people who spend much time at all in it literally shine.
Moses' face was so radiant with the glory of God when he came down from the mountain where he'd met with God to receive the commandments he had to put a veil over his face to keep from frightening people. 
When Jesus was in the glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, " ... his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light" (Matthew 17:2).
Years after Jesus' resurrection when He appeared to John on the Isle of Patmos, He was so radiant with the brightness of the glory that His head and His hair appeared "white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire" (Revelation 1:14).
Jesus never has been and is not now a white-haired man. His hair is dark. But when John saw Him, He was so bright with the glory that He glowed with white light. 
Some people assume the radiance John saw upon Jesus was due to the fact that He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
But the truth is, He was just as much King of kings and Lord of lords during the first few days after His resurrection as He was years later when Revelation was written. 
Yet in those first days when He appeared to John and the other disciples, there wasn't anything outstanding about His appearance. 
The reason He now shines brighter than the noonday sun is because He has spent years in the manifested glory of God! 
My friend, Jesse Duplantis, has been to heaven and seen that glory. He said it's so thick around the throne of God that you can't see through it. You can just see an outline of God the Father through that brilliant cloud. 
God Himself is so glorious that He looks like a fire from the loins up and a fire from the loins down, according to Ezekiel 1:27. He's afire with the glory! 
There's so much power in that glory, Jesse lost all strength in the presence of it. He fell on his face and could hardly move.
Yet, he watched as Jesus walked right into it and spent time in there with the Father. 
Of course, Jesse was only there for a short time but, even so, on the night of that heavenly visitation when he went to a church to preach, people said his very countenance glistened. The light and the glory of God were still resident on him. 
The Day the Glory Invaded Hell 
Now that you've caught a glimpse of the awesome power of the glory of God, think about Jesus for a moment.
He not only has that glory resident on Him, He has it flowing in Him. That's right! His resurrected body has the glory of God flowing through its veins instead of blood. 
Jesus is filled with and surrounded by the glory and all that it is. All life. All goodness. He is untouchable by death ever again. He walks in all authority both in heaven and in earth with all spiritual and physical authority. 
Everything that man has and everything that God has all rolled up into one Being with the glory of God flowing in His veins—that's Jesus.
And we are destined to be conformed to His image. We're headed toward the same fullness of glory! That's why Jesus died for us. That's why He was raised again—so He could bring many sons unto glory! (Hebrews 2:10). 
Ever since the beginning, God created man to be glorious.
Psalm 8:5 says that when God made man, He "... crowned him with glory and honour."
Adam and his wife were crowned with the glory of God when God created them. That doesn't mean they had silly gold circles floating over their heads.
It means Almighty God laid His hands on the crowns of their heads and flooded them with His glory. 
From Adam's first conscious day as a living soul until the moment that he sinned, he never laid eyes on his physical body.
He was clothed from the inside out by the glory of God. His body was protected by it. He could walk through the Garden of Eden without anything harming him. 
But when he bowed his knee to Satan, the light within Adam went out. The source of the glory was quenched.
All the rest of his spiritual qualities were still there. He was still a spirit. He had a soul and lived in a body, but the glory of God had departed from him. 
That's what spiritual death is. It's being separated from the life and glory of God. 
If Jesus hadn't come to redeem us, all mankind would still be hopelessly trapped in that spiritually dead, glory-deprived condition. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
But, praise God, Jesus took our sin on Himself and bore the penalty of it—which was spiritual death. 
I've had ugly books written about me because I said that Jesus died spiritually, but the fact is, I didn't say that - the Bible said it.
Jesus became our substitute. If he hadn't died spiritually, then we could never have been made alive spiritually. But He did! 
On the cross, Jesus was separated from the glory of God. He allowed Himself to be made sin for us, and He became obedient to death. After three days, He was made alive in the spirit by the glory of God! 
On that day, God's absolute, utmost goodness invaded the pit of absolute, utmost badness "hell itself" and surged into Jesus' emaciated, sin-filled spirit.
The glory of God re-created Him and made Him the firstborn from the dead. All the sin, sickness and demons of hell had to bow their knee and turn Him loose, because they couldn't stand the presence of the glory! 
Like a Rocket Headed Home 
Now think about this. Let it sink in. 
It is that same glory Jesus is leading us into right now. We're headed for glory like a rocket locked on a target.
The Bible says as we behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are being "... changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18). 
Notice that verse says we're changed as we behold the glory. How do we do that?
By attending to the "glorious gospel." The gospel that is in the Book you carry to church every Sunday is the Word of the living God, and it is filled with His glory!
When you read it under the Anointing of God, you're changed more and more into the very image of that glory. That's why the Apostle Paul said: 
“... Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard ... Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God: Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing] in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:23, 25-27)
Listen, my friend. You have an anointing in you that's the Anointing of Jesus, and it is crying out for the glory. There's something on the inside of you that cries for the glory of God. 
There was a time when we sinned and fell short of the glory. But we're no longer short of it. Now we have "the hope of glory" within us. 
The word translated hope there doesn't mean "wish". It means "absolute expectancy".
With that in mind, you can read Romans 5:1-2 as follows: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing]: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope [absolute expectancy] of the glory of God." 
It's time for us, as believers, to take a faith stand concerning the glory! 
When you're standing by faith, you don't say, "I sure hope I get it one of these days."
No, when you take a faith stand, you go to the Word of God, find out what God has already said, and then take an uncompromising stand on that Word.
You say, "That's mine! I settle it now in the Name of Jesus according to the Word of the living God. I fully expect to see the glory of God in my life!" 
Personally, I've already determined to take that stand. I have meditated and studied the scriptures concerning the glory until I am fully expecting it to manifest in my life.
I'm expecting resurrection power to accompany me wherever I go. I'm expecting the same glory that shone like fire on the face of Jesus to shine in me and my situation. 
I'm expecting my God to supply all my needs. How? ACCORDING TO HIS RICHES IN GLORY! 
I'm not looking for that glory to come floating down out of heaven. I'm expecting it to come from the inside of me. I'm expecting it to come from the inside of you. 
I'm expecting it to come out of us because 1 Chronicles 16:27 says: "Glory and honour are in (God's) presence, ... "
And since God Himself is present in us through the indwelling Holy Spirit, the glory is already inside us! 
Our problem up to now hasn't been a lack of glory. It's been a lack of understanding. We've haven't had a revelation of the glory of God within us.
We haven't known how to release it so it can flow from the inside out. We haven't known how to cooperate with the glory. But God doesn't intend for us to remain ignorant. 
“For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ [the Anointed One and His anointing]. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7)
God hasn't left us in the dark. He has commanded the light to shine and give us a working knowledge, an ability to comprehend and understand how to use the glory of God that dwells within us.
He has given us the "mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16).
In other words, the same anointing that is on the mind of Jesus is available to us. 
So ask for it! Ask God for the knowledge of the glory. James 1:5 promises He will give it to you liberally. 
There's no need for you to stay tied up in knots over some problem the devil has pushed on you.
There's no need for you to be stopped by some mountain of sin, sickness or poverty the devil has put in your path.
You have the glory of God on the inside of you. You have the anointing to release the manifestation of that glory. 
So start expecting the glory!
Begin to expect to know the solution to that problem.
Expect the glory to explode through you and blow that mountain sky high! 
When you put the Word of God in your heart and in your mouth, expect your words to be filled with the same resurrection power that caused hell itself to bow its knee 2,000 years ago.
Expect the all-powerful goodness of God to permeate your whole being—spirit, soul and body—until your life shines with the very light that shines from Jesus' face, the light that illumines all of heaven. 
Expect the glory!
RELATED POSTS:
.
Let There Be Glory and Honor and Praises
CLICK HERE . . .
.
The Glory of God: Do We Know What We Are Asking For?
CLICK HERE . . .
.
Bold Demands We are to Make of God
CLICK HERE . . .
.
SURELY THE 
PRESENCE



CLICK HERE . . . to view complete playlist . . . 

Excerpt permission granted by 
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
 aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries
  








No comments:

Post a Comment