PARTICIPANTS IN MOMENTS OF GLORY

I’ve been wondering, what are great moments of glory in human history?  There are so many.  The Bible is full of amazing moments.  So is millenia of history. So, I wrote a few down. My short list is not absolute nor is it definitive, and beyond question.  It's just what quickly comes to mind.


Here they are, moments of glory when I would love to have been present (and active) as a participant-observer:

• With Moses on the other shore - (helping the last Israelite across the Red Sea).
• With the shepherds and the angelic choir (singing with them "Glory in the Highest") on  the first Christmas night.
• With Mary and Jesus at the empty tomb that first Easter morning.
• With Abraham Lincoln (holding his hat) during his Gettysburg address.
•  With US Marines (planting the flag with them) on Iwo Jima.
• With William Booth - when he first wrote the words “The Salvation Army.”
• With Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall (whispering, “Tell them about your dream”).

Those were all wonderful moments of glory in human history.  They were also great moments that legitimately we can say, “Glory to God.”  They are moments when the essence of God’s wisdom, strength, and love for the world were made manifest. Looking back at such moments occasions inspiration and hope in the future.  Each of those glorious moments arose out of times of difficulty, struggle, and seemingly insurmountable challenges.  That’s how God’s glory works.  In moments when doubt and discouragement may prevail, God reaches down to lift us up and give us strength and wisdom we did not know was possible. In these moments we participate in his providence and grace.

The hope we have going forward is that those moments are not reserved for history.  With God there’s always more.  There will be more moments of inevitable struggle and frightful challenge, but glory to God, his promises are sure.  He is steadfast and faithful.  He draws us into those moments as he did Moses, Lincoln, Booth, and MLK. In those moments of God’s faithful intervention, we have the assurance in our spirit that we are more than observing his glorious grace.  We sense that God is letting us participate in his divine nature.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious

promises, so that through them you may

participate in the divine nature.

2 Peter 1:4

THE PURE IN HEART

Jesus declared in his sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)  As a child growing-up in the faith context of The Salvation Army, I learned a chorus that I still remember the tune.  At times, throughout the day, it comes to me as an enduring gift from God.  It goes like this:

Give me a heart like thine.  

Give me heart a like thine.

  By thy wonderful power, 

  By thy grace every hour,

   Give me a heart like thine.

Samuel Logan Brengle, in his classic work Helps to Holiness, his chapter entitled "The heart of Jesus" unpacks what the song writer likely meant when he penned the chorus above.  Jesus has a pure heart, a heart of pure, holy love.  Purity of heart is God’s essence, his nature, his character.  When the Bible says “God is love” it means not any kind of love, but holy love that characterizes the purity of his heart.  Brengle underscores Jesus having a loving heart, a humble heart, and a gentle heart.  He goes on to say, “It is just this kind of heart he wants us to have.”  But it is not just a heart that only teaches love, but lives out the purity of heart as love in action.

Martin Luther King grasped an understanding of purity of heart in action when he powerfully wrote, Strength to Love (1964) especially chapter four about the love of Jesus in action.  Citing Christs’s words on the cross, “Father forgive them . . . (Luke 23:34), King highlights the “marvelous expression of Jesus’ ability to match words with action.”  The words of our Lord’s teaching came from the purity of his heart, but he was not merely a good teacher or philosopher with a pure heart.  He was and is Savior and Lord who out of the purity of his heart bled and died on our behalf on the cross.  He acted on our behalf , and still does in the sending of the Holy Spirit.  He acted on our behalf and still does in his advocacy with God the Father for our forgiveness and salvation.  Today he acts on our behalf even now to restore us to his likeness in purity of heart.

Dr. Steve Seamand's, professor of Christian doctrine at Asbury Seminary, in his book entitled Holiness of Heart and Life (1990), writes “God’s holiness is manifest in his absolute purity.  God calls us to be pure.  Through his Spirit he can make us pure.  If we are willing, God can cleanse us from all our impurities and will cause us to follow him wholeheartedly (Ezekial 36:25-27).  Then he asks, “Will we hear his call to purity?  Will we receive his grace which can make us and keep us pure?  Will we be holy as God is holy?”

There is the useful life and the holy example that flow

from a pure heart, which will not only speak in favour

of God and holiness while you live, but shall go on influencing

the world long after you have passed on to your reward.

                 - William Booth, Purity of Heart (1902) -