shawnethomas

Years ago, when our older kids were very small, I took our son David to Falls Creek with me for the week — he was 3 or 4 years old. We had a great week, as we got to hang out and do a lot of fun things together. One day was particularly fun, as he got an orange soda, had just finished watching our church team play softball, and we were walking down one of the neat trails at Falls Creek, when David looked up at me and asked: “Dad, is this heaven?” Well, of course Falls Creek, even as blessed as it is, is not heaven. It is not even close. But unfortunately, many of us as adults do not have a much better developed idea of what heaven is than my 4-year-old son had. We think of heaven as comprising the best things we have experienced here on earth, or in terms of perfect bodily health or unbounded prosperity — when the great blessing of heaven is something far greater than that: the very glory of God Himself. II Thessalonians 2:14 says:

“It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

God created each of us to know His glory, and be enthralled and satisfied with it — but we separated ourselves from fellowship with His glory by our sin. But the New Testament teaches us that through faith in Jesus Christ, we “gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” back again. This is “the gospel of glory.” In II Corinthians 4:4 Paul calls the gospel, “the gospel of the glory of Christ” — for the glory of God is what the gospel returns us to. For years, many of us have overlooked, or minimized, scriptural references to the glory of God — or not understood their significance. Let us look at a range of scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments which describe “The Gospel of Glory.” Continue reading →