Put on Your Glory!

I LOVE autumn. I am so excited to see the trees putting on their “glory—like this maple in my side yard that I can watch transform from my office window.

But that begs a question.

 

Are we putting on our “glory”? Is that an odd question? Not really.

 

As a teen, I would arrive early to college and sit on a couch outside the “pub” to read my little New Testament, a graduation gift from my church. This, 2 Corinthians 3:18 (AMP), is the one verse I still remember from those times (of course, it was the King James Version back then).

 

And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,

are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.

 

Take a step back and look at verse 17—

 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom].

 

That’s what the Lord desires for us—emancipation from bondage. He wants us to live in the freedom He holds out to us through the steps we take to follow Him, to put on that “image,” as Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:24. And that enables His glory through the work of the Holy Spirit to dress us up gloriously year round!

 

So, keep looking in the mirror of the Living Word—with an unveiled face, see His glory and put it on. Don’t let anything rob you of that privilege. Make your time in His presence what He wants it to be—an honor, pleasure, and a joy.  As Matthew Henry wrote, “We behold Christ, as in the glass of his word; and as the reflection from a mirror causes the face to shine, the faces of Christians shine also.”

 

Put on your glory! Shine!

 

 

Love that Constrains

This past Sunday, one of the hymns we sang in church was “Living for Jesus,” by Thomas Chisholm. The second stanza is—

 

Living for Jesus who died in my place,

Bearing on Calv’ry my sin and disgrace;

Such love constrains me to answer His call,

Follow His leading and give Him my all.

 

Love that constrains. That word, constrains, is something interesting. It means to limit or restrict. Does that sound odd to you? A love that limits us? A love that restricts us?

 

Isn’t it true, though? You, as a mom, put limits around your children because you love them. Yet in those limits, they find freedom.

 

It’s like Priscilla Shirer wrote—

 

Often, when God wants to move you forward to the next level with Him, He may require you to “tuck in your tunic”—to restrict certain things within the boundaries set by His truth. When you willingly submit, true freedom awaits you.

From “The Armor of God”

 

The truth is, you cannot go from here to there without leaving here. And that does require a response to the Lord’s love that is constraining.

 

In order to follow Jesus fully, to answer His call, the disciples had to constrain themselves. And so do we. If we are to walk in the Spirit, we cannot walk according to the flesh. (Galatians 5) If we are to put on Christ, there are numerous things we have to put off. (Ephesians 4, Colossians 3)

 

And that means, praying moms, if we are going to be the temples of our God, the houses of prayer—His prayer warriors—that we are meant to be, there will be much that we have to limit in our lives. But, isn’t it worth it? We not only get to participate in His kingdom work, we are drawn close into the Presence of the One who sits on the throne!

 

May His love constrain us to answer His call, to follow His leading, and to give Him our all.

 

Living for Jesus, a life that is true,

Striving to please Him in all that I do;

Yielding allegiance, glad hearted and free,

This is the pathway of blessing for me.