Spiritual Wellness Series
Part 3 – Spiritual Wellness Series
Spiritual involves faith, the substance within which we do not see it with our own eyes. It involves hope and love alone, and it will not work without the hope and love our physical body can provide. We can be justified by faith alone, believing in the Son Jesus, but placing the Son before the Father will be a problem, even just seeing the gate of heaven.
Remember Moses when he was not allowed to enter the Promise Land; he just saw the promised land on top of the mountain? Based on the scripture, God the Father will not share his glory with others. In Isaiah 42:8. God states, “I am the LORD, that is my name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images” (NASB).
All the glory belongs to Him, and He will not share this with anyone. We can understand from the context that the glory that God does is not shared with anyone else because the glory only belongs to the Creator God Almighty– the Judge of all humanity. Aside from glory, it can also be translated as honor or dignity. So how can He share His divine claim, which later comes back void because of man’s disobedience?
In Isaiah 42:8 and 48:11, this kind of glory is not shared with anyone else. This glory only belongs to Him, or His word will be broken. Therefore, it is very well emphasized that He will not give his glory to anyone else.
When the Son finished His mission on the cross, He ascended to heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father, and we can make a point that the Son received the glory that belongs to Him for that particular mission to save the world and reconcile the lost souls back to Him. This type of glory was the same as what Moses received upon getting close to the promised land. It is also the glory of someone like Abraham dining with the Angel of the Lord. Due to his patience, David did not rush to be a king, but he waited steadfastly until the appointed time when he was forgiven for all his sins. Gathering the materials used in building the temple that will be the house of the LORD was also an honor for David. But, of course, the real honor belongs to God alone.
Due to the vulnerability of man to sin, God will not allow man to take credit for what God does. This may lead others to falsely recognize their fellow men that they deserve the praise and blindly follow them and be their god. However, we are confident that these things will not happen without His will. The word glory is apparent in the translation that glory is honor or dignity.
When God has chosen you to be with Him so that you may find what you are missing beforehand and without hesitation, you submit your Free Will; that is one great opportunity to become one of His elect. The Calvinism belief works in this regard to predestination. We have so many loads on our shoulders that we should settle to make the load bearable by knowing first who we are.
God will not give His glory to another. He is the blessed and only Ruler who lives in an unapproachable holy of holies, the beaming light that reaches the earth but is unreachable to humans. “To him be honor and might forever. Amen” (1 Timothy 6:15–16). The Lord, our God, has the highest glory, honor, power, and authority—Revelation 4:11. Even the mightiest angels in heaven cannot look at Him—Isaiah 6:1–4.
God will not give His Glory to another.
Jesus made an astounding prayer which made Him known as Jesus the High Priest when He prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began” (John 17:5). Three things of note here:
I-Jesus prayed for glory to the Father
a) Jesus is not the Father as the Oneness believers claimed.
b) When Jesus was in human form, this seems that he lost his glory (glorified body?)
c) This proves that God’s child has two natures The Flesh and the spirit. Born in the flesh is flesh, and born in the spirit is spirit. The physical life itself is dependent upon birth. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. The flesh is distinct from the spirit and is human nature. Spirit is opposed to the flesh. Born of the Spirit is divine.
II— Jesus was asking for the presence of God, which made this analogy; that the Spirit of the Father is not with him. He is fully human at the time, speaking of himself and not of the Father.
III—Jesus’ glory is dependent on the glory of the Father. In other words, Jesus asks:
a) The Father would not give His glory to another.
b) Jesus lost his glory because of his mission of redemption as a human and not as God.
c) Jesus as the pre-existent Son of God means he already possesses that divine glory.
Who are we to assume Jesus’ prayer? As a seeker of the truth to give light to some degree of ambiguity, Is Jesus’ mission to redeem the people of the world his primary reason, or was there something else? When Jesus said that he would give the authority and power given to him by the Father as soon as his entire enemy would be under his feet so that God would be all in all. Jesus, the faithful witness, Son of God, is worthy to have his glorious throne—Matthew 25:31
The Hebrew word, used for glory in the Old Testament, has the simple meaning of “heaviness” or “weight.” It was used in everyday speech to express a person’s worth in the material sense and then to express the ideas of importance, greatness, honor, splendor, power, good reputation, intelligence, knowledge, judgment, and so on.
Adam was created in the image of God and obtained all of these perfect attributes of God, but because of disobedience, sin was unearthed and allowed to share in the lives of humanity; thereby, Adam lost all the glories that we should have inherited instead of sin. Lost Paradise, lost glories, and lost souls have been the human mission to reclaim, and the only way is to find the way back under the wings of God. Sin, as it entered human lives, made us the perfect imperfection of His creation and became the lost treasure of humanity, which is the perfect life. Every glory of the Father has been denied to humans as He said, He will not share His glory with anyone, especially the carved images.
Spiritual is about God and no one else besides Him. With the knowledge that God is a Spirit and spirit gives life, God is life. That is simple. We can define God in this contained physical world, but God cannot be limited to one single or straightforward definition; God is limitless, unsearchable, with immeasurable sovereignty.
Origen, one of the early church fathers in the 3rd century, presented three interpretations of the Kingdom of God:
1) Jesus himself represents the Kingdom.
2) The Kingdom represents the hearts and minds of faithful believers through the love of God and Christian teachings.
3) Interpretation is that the Kingdom represents the Christian church composed of faithful believers.
To this date, there are interpretations that the Kingdom of God is the government of God. We can surely settle these interpretations to a more straightforward and more understandable view; when we put these two with the wisdom of God, the Kingdom is here now and governed by God with the Son as soon as Jesus fully received the Kingdom on earth and declared the King of kings and Lord of lords. Then, the earth will be fully secured and safe.
We are the Kingdom under God.
Part 1 — Physical Wellness Series
Part 2 — Emotional Wellness Series
Part 3 — Spiritual Wellness Series