Glory for today and tomorrow

Saturday July 31, 2021

Glory for today and tomorrow

When he comes that day to be celebrated among his saints and admired among all who have believed ; but you have believed our testimony. This is why we pray for you constantly, so that our God may find you worthy of his call and that by his power he may bring to their fulfillment all desire to do good and all work of faith. Thus the glory of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ will be revealed in you and yours in him, in accordance with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 1:10-12

Glory has been defined as "the brightness of the perfections of God when he manifests them". When we think of glory, we gladly send it back to the future, when we are in heaven, contemplating, no longer by faith but by sight, the beauties of the person of our Lord. Now, the point of today's verses is precisely to make us perceive the close link that exists between the future glory of our Lord and our present life on earth.

The day will come when Jesus Christ will be glorified in his saints. He will not be glorified “among” his saints, nor “by” his saints, as if we were only spectators who admire and praise him, nor “by means” of his saints, as if we were mirrors reflecting his image ; he will be glorified in his saints, as if we were those who constitute his glory. This will be true by the simple fact of having become saints. But also, all that will have been seen of the Lord in the earthly life of each of his redeemed will then be gathered to form the glory, not of these saints, but of him who made them such.

This is why Paul naturally follows with a prayer that this transformation of the saints to the glorification of our Lord can already take place today. How then can we glorify Christ now ? By living more and more up to the call of God. And to get there, let us know that it is God who will operate in us to will and do it, according to his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13), which is an effect of his grace. So without delay, today Jesus can be glorified in us and we in him !

Source (Pleasing the Lord)