Dear friends and family,
I have been thinking deeply about something that sounds simple, but I am discovering it reaches into every part of our spiritual lives: belief and surrender belong together.
We can believe that God is powerful. We can believe He still heals, delivers, restores, and moves by His Spirit. We can even believe that His glory is available today. But there comes a moment when belief has to move beyond what we agree with and become what we surrender to.
The Bible describes God’s glory with the Hebrew word kavod—the idea of weight or heaviness. His glory is His weighty, tangible presence. In the Old Testament, there were moments when that presence became so overwhelming that the priests could not even stand to minister.
God’s presence filled the house.
But here is what grips me: God’s glory is no longer something we simply look for around us. His glory has been deposited within us.
Paul wrote in Colossians 1:27, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Think about that! Under the Old Covenant, the glory of God was associated with a people, a tabernacle, and the manifest presence of God among Israel. But through Jesus Christ, God has chosen the human heart as the dwelling place of His presence. He takes out the old heart and gives us a new heart—one capable of receiving what He desires to deposit within us.
That causes me to ask myself a challenging question:
If His glory is already in me, how much access am I giving Him?
I am realizing surrender is rarely an all-or-nothing statement we make once. There can be areas of our hearts where Jesus has complete access and other rooms where we quietly keep the door closed. We want His presence, but we also want control. We want His power, but sometimes only on our terms.
Yet God is looking for more than percentages.
The church desperately needs the manifest presence of God again, not another program, personality, or strategy. One moment in His presence can accomplish what human ability could never accomplish.
His glory still breaks chains. His glory still heals broken hearts. His
glory still sets captives free.
So perhaps the question for us today is not, “God, will You send Your glory?”
Maybe it is:
“Lord, will I surrender enough for the glory You have already deposited within me to be revealed?”
This is an hour for wholehearted belief and wholehearted surrender.
Give Him full access.
From my heart to yours,
Mike