Glory Inhabited

I think I have read these verses about 60 times over the last week.  Its one of those sections that you can easily scan over and get the idea, but it takes a little longer to get the full volume of what it really means.

John 17
²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
   ²⁴ “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
   ²⁵ “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I have made you^[a] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

These verses are truly incredible.  First Jesus is praying for unity among His believers, something that we can all agree we need and desire.  But what He has invited us to is even more astonishing. 

He is inviting us to see and feel things the same way He does.  He is inviting us to be inhabited by the same glory He is inhabited with, to sit next to Him on His thrown. We will never be equals(Philippians 2:66who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped),but we will exist with Him, we will be married in the age to come.  We will then be equally yoked.

No being in Heaven is currently able to reign with Him like that.  Every other being worships around the thrown, they bow before Him, the seraphim rise and fall singing of His Glory and Beauty.  They actually sing "trancendent beauty" over and over as they are overwhelmed by His presence.(Revelations 4:8-11)  But God invites us closer, to be in Him, as Jesus is in Him(verse 22)!  “In Hebrews it says how we will walk as a bride, in a newly acquired ownership in relation to everything her bridegroom possesses.  Time and time again the Bible tells us we actually become partakers in God’s glory.” (Verse 22)-Mike Bickle’s ‘Seven Longings of the Human Heart.’

Hebrews 2:7 and 10
 ⁷⁾YOU HAVE MADE HIM FOR A LITTLE WHILE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS;
         YOU HAVE CROWNED HIM WITH GLORY AND HONOR,       AND HAVE APPOINTED HIM OVER THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS;
¹⁰For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.  

This is a concept that hits me in waves. I am completely overwhelmed; He is willing to give everything He has; all His beauty, wisdom, love, and even all His glory, with no real cost from me.(Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.) I have done nothing to deserve such treatment, my value seems so little. But desire brings value, His desire is for me, and He will give me everything He has. It’s His desire for us, not just mine, to share in everything He has. That’s why he created us, to share in the joy and things He possesses.

We will have the capacity to love more as we are empowered with holy affections for God and others. The love of God will be poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. (Romans 5:5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.) The very love with which the father loved Jesus will be in us. (John 17:26) We will love to a degree that goes far beyond anything we can presently imagine.

Shakina Glory is the very presence of God, the indwelling of His spirit. His Presence appeared to various individuals, sometimes in the Person of the Angel of the Lord. He was seen in the Burning Bush by Moses, then in the Fire by night and the Cloud by day to the children of Israel. He dwelt in the Ark of the Covenant, and inhabited the Temple with His Glory after the dedication offered up by Solomon II Chron.7:1,2. He dwelt among men in Christ fully and bodily, and now dwells in us by the Holy Spirit.

We will have sips and tastes of this kind of unity with Jesus on this Earth, but it won’t be completely fulfilled until we are in heaven with Him.  I love the fact that He allows us to taste of Him, like we talked of David’s life long pursuit was to get one more glimpse of God, I also thirst of God presence.  Its like an energy drink that allows me to keep going until He will be poured out in full measure when we are united in Heaven.