Caught Up in the Glory

The goal of an athlete is to get stronger by the day. One way to get stronger is to hit the gym and lift weights. The more an athlete can lift, the more impressed others seem to be. The heavier the weight, the more glory is given to the lifter. 

Did you know that the Hebrew word for glory means “weight,” “importance,” or “heaviness”? The Earth is full of God’s glory (Isaiah 6:3). The weightiness of God is more substantial than anything we could imagine.

Perhaps our cultural obsession with lifting more weight points us to our desire to know the weightiness of God. We wrestle with the tension of wanting glory for ourselves and giving God the glory He deserves. Accumulating glory might satisfy us at the moment, but it will ultimately leave us empty. The Kingdom of God ushers in a new paradigm for glory. Christ was glorified when He emptied Himself. Even Jesus longed to give the glory back to His Father. In John 17:1, Jesus prayed, “Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.”

Jesus bore the ultimate weight of death and conquered it. His power was greater than the grave. The glory of God outweighs death because of Christ’s resurrection. God is the powerlifter of all powerlifters! He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17).