What is the spirit of glory?
The spirit of glory is the manifested presence of God before He glorifies His Name. What does it look like when God glorifies his name? To name a few, parting the red sea getting parted, the sick getting healed, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You can see why it would be important to receive the spirit of glory. But there's a problem, many of us don't know how to identify God's presence of glory, and often end up forfeiting Him glorifying himself as a result of it.
So how can we identify God's presence of glory? God's been so gracious to give us the answer in His word!
1 Peter 4:14
"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified."
Suffering is a sign God's presence of glory is upon us, it's the last thing we'd expect to see and it certainly doesn't feel like His presence is upon us when we're going through that suffering. But God chooses such a contrary situation like suffering because He promises to confound the wise with the foolish (1 Cor. 1:27 " But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise..."). It's this "foolish" thing like tribulation God uses to conceal a blessing behind it, miraculous intervention. Before the resurrection, there has to be a death. Suffering comes with death, and it is agonizing, so agonizing many are faced with the temptation to quit. What can we do to make it through this suffering?
Activate the spirit of glory through knowledge!
1 Peter 4:13
"But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." Rejoicing is what activates the spirit of glory to manifest divine joy. And it's this divine joy God gives us to make it through tribulation, to see the other side of His manifested glory, miraculous intervention. Nehemiah 8:10 "... the joy of the Lord is your strength."
What happens when we respond in faith to our trial of faith with rejoicing? The future joy experienced from God's manifested glory gets pulled into the present, and you can walk into that tribulation with all confidence knowing He already came through! That joy is your future receipt proving His miraculous intervention is already fulfilled. Rejoicing brings us this confidence, but how to we stay rooted in it?
Bread in the Holy of Holies
By patiently eating our bread in the holy of holies... In Leviticus 10, the glory of God descends upon the altar, his fire of glory consumes the food, and Aaron’s sons offer a strange fire in response. God kills them & Moses instructs Aaron, Eleazar, Ithamar and his sons to eat the offering that was left by God's fire in the holy of holies as they normally would. But Aaron doesn't do that, instead he tells Moses that they already offered their sin offering before the Lord and can't eat another offering for the day. How did Aaron keep such a mind of peace after experiencing such a devistating loss?
Aaron’s mind of peace
Aaron's response to this tribulation was to keep his mind in what God's word previously commanded him to do. He didn't react to his trial by acting on fear, but instead put God's word first. And it was this patience & obedience that birthed the understanding to know what he should do.
We need to stay in the holy of holies and eat God's word to stay spiritually strong. This path gets easier when we understand the significance of the bread on the altar. Aaron and his sons got their daily provision of food from the altar, and God's fire just consumed it, leaving only some behind. God just took the fruit of Aaron's seed (his sons) and "tomorrow's provision" of bread...
Aaron knew, the same God that took his sons gave them to him to begin with. He knew the same God that took his bread is the same one that gave it to him... Aaron knew, the hand of God gives, and takes, Job 1:21 "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." It was this simple and humbling truth that kept Aaron in the right mind to stay faithful to God's calling on his life. And God was faithful in return, although he took his two sons, God later gave him all the Levites to help him minister in the tabernacle, over 8,600 men. Then changed the law to only take the first born of the Levites instead of the Israelites, then had the Levites give Aaron 1,365 pieces of silver. God glorified himself in Aaron by giving him a whole city's worth of men, and 1,365 pieces of silver. Aaron might have lost a day's worth of provision and blessing of children to help with the labor, but God's hand secured tomorrow's labor and provision for generations to come.
This trial ends with your response to the trial itself
After Aaron loses his sons, Moses tells him not to; remove his covering, tear his clothes, nor forget about the anointing, but why is this? Because all these things were apart of Aaron's guaranteed safety from not being killed by the same fire that killed his sons.
We need to do the same! When faced with tribulation, we need to keep our covering of Christ on by not going under another authority seeking deliverance, we need to keep on our garments of righteousness by not running to sin, and lastly we need to remember we've been anointed by Christ and carry his supernatural intervention!
To sum it up, don't quit because your guaranteed protection is inside your still obedience. The enemy knows this, he can't touch you, but if he can convince you to destroy yourself, then he doesn't have to!
Are you ready for the spirit of glory?
Lord let your glory fall on me!
Need another season to prep!
The temptation of "why me"
Just like us in Christ, the altar was sanctified, the blood was already shed, and this is why God appeared in the first place, because it was previously sanctified by his glory! Jesus has already sanctified us, atoned for us, and given us the bread on the altar, But the same hand that gives, can also take. And when his spirit of glory is upon the altar, he tries our faith before he glorifies himself, so rejoice knowing your blessing is already here!