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Human vs. God’s Glory
posted in: Quotes
Saturday, March 13, 2010
(Show Me the Way, p. 116)
“Human glory is always connected with some form of competition. Human glory is the result of being considered better, faster, more beautiful, more powerful, or more successful than others. Glory conferred by people is glory that results from being favorably compared to other people. The better our scores on the scoreboard of life, the more glory we receive. This glory comes with upward mobility. The higher we climb on the ladder of success, the more glory we collect. But this same glory also creates our darkness. Human glory, based on competition, leads to rivalry; rivalry carries within it the beginning of violence; and violence is the way to death. Thus human glory proves to be vain glory, false glory, mortal glory.
....God, in His infinite wisdom, chose to reveal His divinity to us not through competition, but through compassion, that is, through suffering with us. God chose the way of downward mobility. ...It is through the way of the cross that Jesus gives glory to God, receives glory from God, and makes God’s glory known to us. The glory of the resurrection can never be separated from the glory of the cross. The risen Lord always shows us his wounds.
Thus the glory of God stands in contrast to the glory of people. People seek glory be moving upward. God reveals his glory by moving downward. If we truly want to see the glory of God, we must move downward with Jesus. This is the deepest reason for living in solidarity with poor, oppressed, and handicapped people. They are the ones through whom God’s glory can manifest itself to us. They show us the way to God, the way to salvation.”
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