We must not allow false humility to cause us to shrink back from our calling as light, salt, and glory. We must take our place as the conductor of the brilliance of God to the darkness of the world. We must see ourselves as more like God than like the lost world, and therefore fit ambassadors, citizens of heaven and not of earth.
As a worship leader, I suppose I'm especially sensitive to the things worship leaders say and sing. It is in our worship that I hear the most confusion and ignorance. It is in the words to our songs and the axioms of our corporate prayers that I sense the greatest darkness in the body of Christ today.
The verse above is certainly true, but shamefully abused in today's Christian culture. There is a pervading attitude in the worship movement that rejects the glory of God in an attempt to preserve humility, but the humility it preserves is false and ungodly. Of course, the glory is to God. That is not in question. The question is how God receives glory. The scriptures say it is from, or through, us.
We are the temples of the living God, the dwelling place of the Almighty, the carriers of His glory. He said He created us for His glory. Why do we believe the lie that reduces that truth to nothing more than a statement of God's sovereignty, and miss the power of its pronouncement over us as the centerpiece of all creation and the final key to His plan for the ultimate revelation of His glory?
Jesus said it was our light shining that would glorify the Father in heaven, that we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. He predicted that our miracles would be even greater than His own would, and that the very gates of Hell would not withstand our power. Then, in His prayer for us, He proudly announced to the Father, "the same glory you gave to me, I have given them."
What was the warning with which Paul warned every man? It was that they take heed to the ancient mystery finally revealed, which is "Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We are the hope...the only hope for God's glory in the earth. He has chosen that it will be through us, and He will not do it independently of us. We will bear, display, demonstrate, and distribute the Glory of God to the world before Jesus returns.
How dare we stand cowering in the shade of our own malformed piety, fearing ourselves not worthy to move out into the glorious light that already shines from within us by God's perfect gift of righteousness? No, it is not about us, but it depends on us, and as long as we hold to our precious self-debasing, self-rejecting, self-excusing so-called humility, we will remain neutralized as carriers of God's glory.
Parenthetically, do not fear that word, "self" or confuse it with "flesh.” Self is no longer flesh for us. The new self is holy, complete, and ready. "If you walk in the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh.” Self is now Spirit, temple, new creature, holy, righteous, participant in the divine nature.
Know who you are and you will not be confused. You see yourself as flesh, and your religion makes sense to you, but when you see that you are new, these weak and elemental doctrines will fall from you like the pseudo-spiritual fluff that they are. You will be free.
We must not allow false humility to cause us to shrink back from our calling as light, salt, and glory. We must take our place as the conductor of the brilliance of God to the darkness of the world. We must see ourselves as more like God than like the lost world, and therefore fit ambassadors, citizens of heaven and not of earth.
We must accept the gift of God's glory in given to us in Jesus, as well as the reality that we ourselves have been made glorious (thank you, David Crowder...I think you get it.). No, God did not make us glorious to glorify ourselves, but that is the unbelieving man's conflict, not ours. Our issue is not to whom the glory will go, but how much of the glory we now share with Him we will display and distribute to the world. It's not about us...but it is.
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