Us in God's Glory

So I was feeling spiritually out of it today. When that is the case and I have the time (Thank God for slow morning at work) I like to read a large portion of scripture. Today I did 1 Thessalonians and 2 verses caught my eye, the second part of 1 Thessalonians 2:12 “God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.” and 5:24 “He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” The first verse because I was thinking that we hear a lot about entering into God kingdom but I don’t think I have heard much about entering into His glory. It immediately sounds like a good thing as my pride acknowledges it wants glory like or grater than God’s glory. Thankfully The Holy Spirit convicts reminding me that my own glory has no place in the kingdom of heaven. It is Gods glory we are called to not our own. I can imagine walking into a kingdom and it a stretch but I can even imagine getting caught up into the kingdom of God when the trumpet sounds, but glory, God’s glory? Exodus 33:20 comes to mind where God says “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” This is might be on of those divine mysteries that we will only know when we get to “glory”. One thing is clear to me today if God Calls He will do and He has called us into His kingdom and His glory so let us work hard to toward that kingdom and toward His glory and enjoy His calling.

Christ in Combat – Defense by The Spirit

This morning on my ride to work I listened to John piper give a message entitled Christ in Combat – Defense by The Spirit the passage was Luke 4:1-12. He starts with Jesus being filled with The Holy Spirit, this is really important because if Christ was filled and lead by The Holy Spirit then so should we be. Piper says that if even Jesus depended on The Holy Spirit we would be fools not to. John moves on the why would the spirit lead Jesus off to be alone and fasting. John shared that times of ministry must be preceded with times of solitude to keep us focused on God and that Jesus fasted to build up spiritual strength by subjecting His body to His will. He then pointed out that Satan when grappling with a strong saint doesn’t waste time on little stuff, he shoots straight for religion and quotes the bible at them. In conclusion, and it was a good one, he said that all Satan’s temptations of Jesus and many of them for the United States today where/are aimed keeping us from suffering in the here and now. Satan wants to keep us safe (un-serving) satisfied (un-praying) and not a threat to him at all. Once he has us there he can run our lives into the ground whenever he pleases. It has me seriously thinking about fasting to get my gluttony and sexual sin under the control of The Holy Spirit. These are my thoughts of what was said not “” which is why I didn’t use “”.