GRACE AND GLORY

Grace and glory are interconnected and inseparable just as with goodness and mercy. The glory of God manifests the grace of God. Psalms 84:11 tells us something exciting: “For the LORD God [is] a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good [thing] will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Grace and Glory have always been connected all through Scriptures. Like brothers, they co-operate all the time. As a matter of fact, wherever there is grace you also find glory. The glory of God deals with the manifestation of God’s grace. So what is grace? What is glory? The grace of God is the workings of God in the life of an individual. The Glory of God, however, first of all, means the splendour of God. Secondly, it means the beauty of God. When the glory of the Lord is said to be upon a man it means that the beauty of the Lord is upon him or that the Lord has beautified that man. Thirdly, the glory of the Lord means the manifestation of the Lord because glory has to do with displaying, showing forth, revealing etc.

Grace is the workings of the Spirit of God in the life of an individual, while glory is the manifestation of that working outwardly. That’s the link between grace and glory. What it then means for the Lord to give grace and glory is that the Lord will do a work in you and show it forth or display it. These are 2 very important dimensions we must understand in dealing with the Lord. There are always 2 phases to whatever the Lord will do in our lives. The first phase is His workings in you and at this time it may seem as though nothing is happening but with the eyes of faith we can see that the Lord is working in us. Then the second phase is the showing forth or the manifestation of the work He’s been doing in our lives. Hence, patience is a major key in respect to this. It is just like building a house. The first aspect of the house has to do with the invisible – the foundation. And quite a lot of time might be spent in laying the foundation depending on what kind of structure is to be erected. So we can say, the laying of the foundation is the workings of grace while the completed building is the glory of the house. At the moment when the foundation is laid, it might not look so good, but when the building is completed we see the beauty.

Glory always has to do with manifestations, revealing, showing forth, displaying etc. the activities of the Lord by the Holy Spirit. God is not only interested in working in our lives. He’s also very interested and passionate about showing forth His workings in our lives. Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” A lot of times, what we really need is the manifestation of what the Lord is doing in our lives. Sometimes we keep asking the Lord for a particular thing over and over again as though He didn’t hear us when we first asked for it. We might just as well receive the manifestation of the answers to our prayers by faith and stay in faith till it is delivered to us in the physical. We receive such manifestations by declaring what God says about that issue and that we receive because we know that the Lord has heard our prayers and granted our requests.

However, any Christian can know if he is living a life of grace and glory or not. It is not the question of whether we’ve been given grace and glory by the Lord because we see in Psalm 84:11 that it is the Lord’s will to give grace and glory. And every child of God has access to a life of grace and glory. It is now the question of whether we are actually living a life of grace and glory. It is a choice. A lot of Christians have lost out on God’s best for their lives because of ignorance, not knowing what is available to them in Christ Jesus or not knowing how to access those things. It is the will of God for us to live a gracious life. It is the will of God for us to live a glorious life. But then He wouldn’t force them on us. We must make up our minds to function in these by laying hold of them by faith. The life of grace and glory is that life with the Word experience. This is a life that experiences the good Word of God in reality. You see, God’s grace is linked with the Word Acts 20:32 says “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” God’s glory is also linked with the Word. Isaiah 40:5 says “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see [it] together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken [it].” So the Word links us up with grace. The Word links us up with glory. Meaning, when we live in the Word, we automatically walk in grace and glory. Hallelujah!

The role of the The Holy Spirit is this matter can never be over emphasized because as we study the Word we see that The Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of grace and the Spirit of glory. The Holy Spirit is also called the Glory of the Father because He is the Manifester of God’s Word (Rom 6:4; 8:11). He is the Manifester of the Godhead. He shows us the mind of God. He shows us the workings of God in, upon and through us. No wonder the Psalmist says in Psalm 90:17 “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.” Friend, this is for real. The Lord is actually calling us to a life of grace and glory. We would accomplish more for the Lord and His Kingdom when we live a life of grace and glory. It honours the Lord when we present the Lord as a gracious and glorious God before the world through the quality of life we live. I see the Lord bringing us into deeper places in Him. I believe the reason you read this piece up to this point is because the Lord wants to do these things in your life. Whatever the Lord will do in your life, He would first show you His Words about it and give you the option of either receiving or rejecting it. Choose right. Blessings!