Glory to Glory

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."

- 2 Corinthians 3.18

I was reminded again yesterday of how this whole God relationship to humanity works. So much ink is spent emphasizing God's greatness in comparison to our fragility, and rightly so. I don't think that God's true grandness can be captured in one phrase or book or speech. It must be said over and over and over again. How beautiful it is, though, to be reminded that God is so great that he has imbued his own glory upon us, fallen humankind.

It's so easy for me to read the Bible and listen to preachers and never get that. I get that I'm super-sinful. I can see that without any help, though the occasional reminder is good. I get that I need to turn from evil intentions to God's truth. But, so often, that becomes my identity. I take on the image of a whore, of a hopelessly blind man, of dust and ashes.

"from glory to glory." That's how this thing works. Because of God's great love for humanity, my identity is glorious. It is as though, to found my identity, I am to look daily "beholding in a mirror the glory of the Lord..." It is from this starting point, the mirror, that I can attempt the other side of the equation. With a proper understanding of my Justification, that I am glorious because of Jesus, I can see where Sanctification, molding and changing my character to fit God's, leads.

I only hope that, as a church, we will continue to uphold this image of "Christ in us." That we would found our identity not in the temporal man, the broken and weak self that we experience daily. That we would not embrace the shifting shadows of our wants and fears. Instead, that we would hold to the truth that our true self is in this person changing "from glory to glory." That we would embrace, in the mirror of God's greatness, the radiant image God has created in us.