Glory? What Glory??

Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?’

John 11:40

Sometimes we come across a verse we know well, or think we do, and find ourselves asking questions. Jesus was talking to his friends Martha and Mary as they looked at the tomb where Lazarus lay. Soon Lazarus would be raised from the dead, but can our verse be applied to us today? It comes down to this: If we believe, will we be able to see the Glory of God too?

It’s too easy to shy away from this interpretation, and think that it only applied to the power that can raise the dead, especially at our own passing through the gates of heaven, or the second coming but is that it? Is that all? How do you and I as believers see the Glory of God?

When I became serious about finding out about salvation as a 14 year old, my Sunday School teacher Alex Barclay prayed with me, and besides reading from Scripture and encouraging me to read and pray daily, he read from the hymn “Loved with Everlasting Love” which has stuck with me down the years since that life changing night. The words of the second verse resonate even now:

Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green!

Something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen;

Birds with gladder songs o’erflow, Flowers with deeper beauties shine,

Since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.

The Glory of God lives in every aspect of the believer’s life, and is obvious. We may not witness the raising of the dead, but what about some of the things we can sometimes take for granted? A glorious sunrise and sunset, the budding flower, the healing of the sick, saving grace seen in another’s life, the pure love of a husband or wife, the birth of a baby, laughter, tears of joy, song, poetry, or friendship, and the list could go on. Can science measure any of these? No, because feelings and emotions come from within, and as the old hymn says, for the Christian, things become softer, sweeter, gladder, and deeper. Who but God can do these things? The very Glory of God is there for us to find and see when we know Christ!