So last night my friend Grace and I had the opportunity to lead worship at our youth group. It's something that I had always wanted to do but never really made it happen. It was such an incredible experience. Yes, both of us were a little nervous, but I had to remind myself that this wasn't a performance it was leading; serving God by leading in worshipping and glorifying God. The message last night was on living our lives to the glory of God which is what leads me to writing.
-taye
John 17:1-10
"After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed: 'Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with You before the world began.
"'I have revealed You to those whom You gave Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me and they have obeyed Your word. Now they know that everything You have given Me comes from You. For I gave them the words You gave Me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given Me, for they are Yours. All I have is Yours, and all You have is mine. And glory has come to Me through them.'"
The word glory or glorify appears five times in just those ten verses, I'm thinking it's pretty important. So what does glory really mean? What does it mean to glorify someone? Webster's defines it as "To give glory to; to light up brilliantly". To LIGHT UP BRILLIANTLY! Do we light God up brilliantly so that all the world will see Him in our lives? Matthew 5:16 says "...let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." We are to SHINE before the world. As Christians, or "little Christs" we should be shining so brightly that every person we come in contact with will see plainly that there is something so different about us from the rest of the world that they will know that Christ is in us and praise Him. Philippians 2:15 says that we are "...children of God...in a crooked and depraved generation, in which [we] shine like stars in the universe." There's that word shine again. What does it mean to shine? Shine is defined as "radiance, luster, or brilliance" and there is brilliance again which means "bright" or "brightness" So basically we are to be shining so brightly for Christ that the world cannot miss seeing Him within us and through our lives that they will see what we have in God and glorify Him. But let us ask ourselves if we are shining.
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