Sunday, February 22, 2009

To Him be All Glory

There is one and only one Name that will ultimately receive all the glory. All the glory given to kings and princes and presidents will be a hollow shadow and will be the embarrassment of eternity when all glory is finally laid at this One’s feet. All praise and all honor and all worship and all glory will be collected from the four corners of the universe and brought into the divine throne room. And at that moment all creatures great and small will be without sound as they watch this event unfold. By the desire of God, all the glory of all the ages past, present, and future will gather at His feet, and all attention will yield itself only to Him…and Him alone.

Oh we have seen great processionals and inaugurations and celebrations, but they are all pitiful whispers when compared with this event. The loftiest imagination of any man cannot even touch the hem of this garment’s glory, and this is not just new territory, this will be a new reality never breached by human expectation. The most moving event ever witnessed by mankind will be as mourning in the light of this spectacle of infinite proportions. It is the coronation of the King of all Kings and the revelation of the Lord of all Lords, openly and powerfully unfolding with a blood bought audience who will only then receive a glimpse into what grace has wrought.

Please, dear saint, do not put down your stakes upon this earth for you are on a journey across a wilderness that should not, must not, become your home. The power of God’s gracious redemption continues to propel us forward, but any joyful sights and sounds we experience here will evaporate upon the very first moment we see Him. He is our destination, not just a place, even the place wherein He dwells. Our thirst can never be quenched here, and in fact the small drinks we have been granted are overflows running backward from the eternal city we seek.

And oh what a city it will be, with the smell of eternity permeating the very amphitheatre of heaven’s glory. The angels of God, the seraphim, the cherubim, the six winged creatures hovering around the throne, and every awesome facet of the place we love to call heaven will bow to Him, the center and Creator of it all. Even the Father voluntarily takes a back seat to this the Son, and the light that illuminates this celestial city proceeds from His very face and overwhelms heaven’s throngs.

It is then and only then that we will realize that we were such fools to ever have given even a part of our hearts to this world and all that is in it, and we will then understand that it was all dung when compared to His eternal and overpowering glory. To say we will be content or fulfilled or even satisfied will be useless human verbiage when spoken in the midst of such surpassing glory, the glory of the Risen Lamb of the Eternal God. And our new hearts will burst within us as we attempt to express the worship due His name and Person.

How can we, the redeemed human representatives of His eternal sacrifice, find it with ourselves to offer unto Him the glory due only to Him? How can we praise enough, how can we shout loud enough, how many tears of gratitude can we shed, how long shall we bow, and with what tongues can we lift up the magnitude of His powerful name? Where can we find the words, not just the words we were granted upon this earth, but where we will find the words that will give Him honor within His very dwellingplace?

Washed in His blood and drenched in His grace, and with the heavenly voices of redemptive praise emanating from the hearts of sinners once dead and now alive, the corridors of heaven will redound with the sounds of worship never imagined before by finite man. We will never grow weary and never tire of praising the Eternal Lion of Judah, and every moment will give birth to another without end and into the never ending ions of eternity we will offer the glory for what He has done and even Who He is. No one can step forward and receive any praise for any act of kindness or even greatness they have done. God will reward the faithful, but those rewards will only reflect again the Giver, not the receiver. Everyone will be transfixed upon Him eternally.

John Wesley will bow before the Christ and reject any praise for the work he did on this earth. Spurgeon will be speechless and without adequate words with which to enunciate his worship. Luther will reject the reformer moniker and speak only of the Redeemer. Calvin will render all his doctrinal academics as folly in the light of the Christ. Edwards, Finney, Whitefield, Moody, Sunday, and Graham will all fall down in a broken expression of selfless awe and worship. Paul and Peter and John will now be grateful saints before His throne and without any expectation of the merits of their own works.

The future for the redeemed is Christ. Eternity for the saved is Him. The complete journey of us pilgrims of redemption is to be with the Finisher of our faith, even the Lord Jesus. So be not shackled with the burdens and affairs of this world, the world to come will be with Him. Our lives are now hid with God in Christ and our existence is eternally tethered to the Lord Jesus. This life is but a vapor, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon this world’s stage, but the end is the glorious beginning.
And there will be no more pain, no more tears, and nothing evil can abide in the glory of His presence. No more remembrances of heartaches gone by and failed expectations and personal failures, and all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to. No more worries and no more struggles and disappointments; no more frustrations and no more bursted dreams; and no more bad news about wars and death. The eternal breath is fresh and inherent with the exhilaration of infinite freedom from sin itself. The eternal brighteness of a new day will be ours in Him forever. No more darkness, no more night, and no more death of any kind awaits those in Him.

So take heart you who call Jesus Lord and Savior, you are being guided into an expanse of His eternal glory. You will be given the opportunity to give Him all the glory in the presence of the mighty and holy angels. You will stand and bow in the midst of a great company of saints who have washed their robes in the eternal river of His blood. You will lay celestial eyes upon the Risen Christ and see the wounds that bear your name. You will stand in the wash of His grace and enter into His resting place, complete in and even like Him. No one will need to convince you on that day that all the glory is His, no, you will run to give it passionately to the Lamb of Glory. It is impossible to describe with the thoughts and words of an earthling the level of glory that will accompany being in His presence. But suffice to say it will be the crowning jewel on this journey God calls salvation.

And it does not appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. To be one moment in His celestial presence will be better than a million lifetimes of power and wealth on this earth.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.

1 comment:

Deborah said...

Beautifully said!
I cannot wait for that day!