Moses had amazing face-to-face encounters with God in the tent of meeting. But it wasn’t enough. He longed to know God more, and he put it into words: Now show me your glory (Ex 33:18).
He was probably unaware of the size of his request. GLORY refers to God’s infinite nature, his perfect being, the full weight of who he is and what he is like. Moses was asking the Lord to step away from the pillar of cloud so he could take in the full view of unveiled glory!
It couldn’t happen; he wouldn’t survive the exposure. The Lord gave him an unforgettable display of his goodness, but made it clear: you cannot see my face (Ex 33:20).
Fast-forward 650 years to Ezekiel’s time. Imagine if Moses had been alive to hear the prophet’s message from God: I will no longer hide my face from them, for I will pour out my Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Sovereign Lord (Ezek 39:29).
I’m sure Moses would have been puzzled. After all, when he asked to see God’s glory, he was told it couldn’t happen. Now the Lord was announcing he WILL show his face! Why the change?
It was always God’s plan to show his glory, but only after removing every reason for not doing so. That happened at the Cross. Then he poured out his Spirit, and now shows his face to all who are safely hidden in the Rock-cleft, Jesus Christ.
Paul picks that up in 2 Cor 4:6: For God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
God’s light in our hearts makes it possible for us to know his glory (displayed in Christ). Not a full, immediate exposure to unveiled glory, but the grace to see more clearly and deeply the beauty of who he is and what he is like.
It’s more than an increase of information. It’s a growth of insight and understanding through the Spirit and Word, and it has a powerful spillover into our walk with the Lord. We’ll look at that in a future post.
The point of the entire narrative of creation and redemption is God’s glory (Rom 11:36). He has reserved the climax chapters for when we arrive Home, but in the lead-up chapters there is so much about glory that the Spirit wants us to know!
The conversation in the Godhead about making glory known must be charged with pure joy. And the amazing thing is, our union with Christ has drawn us into that conversation. We get to celebrate and talk with the Godhead about the knowing of glory!
It’s a conversation that must include our longing to know his glory more. We do what Moses did when he was hungry to know glory. He put it into words: Show me your glory.
When…
- the glory of God-with-us no longer shapes our living, and
- the longing to know his glory more is missing, and
- passion for his glory to be known no longer defines life’s purpose, and
- we seldom hear hunger for his glory put into words, or perhaps we ourselves have lost the language of prayer that hungers for him…
then it’s time for us to restart a conversation with him about his glory.
It starts in the heart, but must be put into words.
In the blog and video TOWARDS Prayer for Revival, the 4th stone in the pathway was: It (Revival) draws attention to God’s glory. A move towards praying for revival will mean restarting a conversation with the Lord about his glory. Not only about its praiseworthiness, but about our longing to know his glory more.
Put it into words. Carve out some focused time for conversations with the Lord about this longing. It will grow into an ongoing conversation about his glory, and will move us towards prayer for revival.
I’ll expand this in a video on the Prayer Life Wingspan channel and post the link when it’s uploaded.
Related posts: TOWARDS Prayer for Revival and Towards Prayer for Revival – the NEED
