Isaiah 6:3 - the whole earth is full of His "glory"
The Hebrew word "glory" is a word that is more sharply, more literally defined as WEIGHT. The substantial or important instead of the unimportant. Compared to anything else: God alone is real, God alone is permanent, and God alone matters.
A rock has more "glory" than the water, in this picture, and replaces and disrupts. The water's reality is completely rearranged... The reality of God coming into our lives is similar. Everything changes.There is a difference in believing in God and actually having an experience of God's glory. Isaiah believed in God before Isaiah 6, but God was just a concept until this moment... and then God became a reality.
What is the difference between a concept and reality? It is all a matter of "glory". God as a concept is lighter than you. When you bring God as a concept into your life you shape it. It fits in around your existing patterns. It does not move you around. A God concept cannot change your beliefs around, it just fits in with your existing beliefs. We have to remember that our beliefs come from a cultural moment (our great grandchildren are going to be just as embarrassed about the beliefs we hold today as we are about the beliefs our great grandparent held). They seem so real, and we give it weight and glory and then we go shape our god with it. We do not have a real God when we do this. We have god as a concept. We do not have a God that could actually change some of our deepest held beliefs. He fits into us. We shape the concept. We have more "glory" and rearrange it. And this leads to the god as a concept being arranged around our existing plans, agendas, and goals. Plenty of people become religious because they need help in getting to their goals...
God as a concept is lighter than us, but God as a reality is heavier then us. When you get into the presence of the real God, things give way in your life to His "glory". Things you have always believed very deeply are changed by His word because God has more "glory" than my beliefs. He can change things I think. And instead of working God into your agenda, God becomes your agenda. He radically redefines your priorities...
Our agenda apart from God is to have a nice and safe, tidy little life. And to watch your back, looking out only for yourself. But God says, 'Be brave! Sacrifice your individual needs because I am more real, I have more glory!'
I don't think the question of whether or not you are a Christian should ever be: have you prayed the prayer. I don't even think that should be a question! For one's own self I think a worthwhile question is, however, has God moved from being a concept to becoming a reality. I am sure He will only be an absolute reality to us when we meet up with Him face to face. But if God is real and Jesus really came down for us, it tells us that He is here in our world now and He can rearrange us now. I feel like I am in this process where God is making Himself more and more of a reality. I am not at the end and will only be there at the end of my life, but the renovation has started. Whether I am willing or not is not the issue, the overwhelming weight of His very self has floored me and I am undone.
And one more thing... You are not going to have an experience like Isaiah :> ... Nobody else in the history of the world has. Even Jeremiah 1 is very different than Isaiah 6 because these men were very different. Isaiah was proud, Jeremiah was filled with self-deprecation. God tells Jeremiah "Stop trembling!" and God tells Isaiah "Start trembling!" But in both cases He showed up.
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What do you think our great- grandchildren will think about the Church's (when I say Church, I mean the mainstream Church in America) beliefs about homesexuality? Will it be akin to the way we look back with contempt on our great-grandfathers' views of women and minorities?
Hey Paul! What’s up man? I hope you and Brooke are doing okay. She just graduated, right? i think that’s pretty cool. And I hope the law work is going all right... Dani and I miss all you guys back in Cali...
Yeah, I guess that would be the inevitable question to that small section I wrote, but that was not at all where I was trying to go with the point... hmmm... I respect the question because I left it open for it, but sorry, I just don’t want to go there. God’s currently shaking me right now with my right now with my own moral perversion and so how can I judge somebody else's situation? I am more evil than I could have ever imagined... and at the same time, more loved by Him than I could have ever dreamed. This shakes me from within a deep place inside of me. That God Himself who knew no sin came to be sin on my behalf, that I might become the righteousness of God through Him. While I was yet an enemy, God died for me! This makes me, instead of wanting point to myself (drawing the line that I think homosexuality is damnable or on the other side drawing a line that I think it is acceptable to God), wanting to point to Him... I feel like the more we look to Him and look on the Gospel, the more we will be transformed into His likeness.
I really am not trying to sidestep the question. I just see that if Jesus didn’t make it THE issue - He constantly ate with “sinners” - those who were sexually active in prostitution, homosexuality (practices that were seen outside of the Torah) - and He never once specifically addressed it. I do see though that He made Himself THE issue. That’s where we must look. That’s where we will be transformed into His likeness. If we understand how helpless WE are, look to Him for identity and shaping, WE will be moved and transformed. He is what holds weight. Not our cultural moment. It is fleeting. I have NO idea what anyone in the future will think. I do see the Bible, however, as the most reliable place to study the character of God. Of He who came down to be a curse for me, so that I might fully live and love to my fullest potential. I think we need to be careful that our cultural moment in the Church does not shape our view of God or the Bible which I think it often does. We must wrestle with God’s word and KNOW what it says, why it was written (for the glory of God not a road map for ourselves), what the authors intended...
All of the secondary issues can all be discussed within tight knit groups of community if He is of first importance (AKA church). This is where His character can weigh on us and change us(because in Him we have everything)... After the Gospel, EVERYTHING else is secondary. Issues are still important, but the comparison of the two are honestly not even close (say as close as New York is to pluto).
I think that was a great question, but it is one where I am no where near handling. I think our attention (and by this I mean the mainstream Church in America) would be best served on other issues like His character and our own affections for Him. And since I know you are not personally affected by issues of homosexuality I can leave it at that.
And thanks for commenting. It made me think through some things I would have otherwise not have thought through...
I definitely could see that the mainstream Church in America could get to that point. But like Scott notes, our cultural moment is fleeting. The Bible holds the truth and it wouldn't be the first time that a church didn't necessarily follow God's word.
One of the main differences between racism of minorities and the way Christian's should be looking at homosexuality is God's love. If you teach your children the Bible, then you teach them that you hold no person in contempt. It's the sin, that you hold with contempt. Showing hatred toward someone who is homosexual is not Christ-like and that is how I think a lot of people view Christians' outlook of homosexuals. In looking back to the way some of the previous generations treated minorities, there was a lot of hatred. Some of those people even called themselves Christians. We're they being Christ-like? No. We are all sinners and need to look to God and our own walk first.
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