“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” John 17:5.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
Most of the conversations Jesus had with Me when He withdrew in the night or early in the morning to spend time apart with Me are not shared with you in My Word, but Jesus chose to share His conversation with Me at the last Passover Seder He celebrated while dwelling among you in the flesh. He always did My Will for His Will was one with Mine, so you know I desired to share this with you. Why? It is all about your unification, purification, sanctification, separation, consecration, and exaltation. It is all about THE GLORY.
So let us visit His prayer again and look at His Words to Me that we have not considered yet in the context of some Words we did consider already:
“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” John 17:4-5.
He glorified Me on earth, having accomplished the mission I sent Him upon, and now He expressed what was in His heart as He was about to return to the majesty on High in triumph.
When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. Hebrews 1:3-4.
Jesus desired for Me to share the glorification He had given to Me together with Him by returning to Him His powers as God from which, in obedience, He emptied Himself in becoming one like you in order to be your Kinsman Redeemer and scapegoat. He had been and wanted to return to our Oneness in Glory that He had with Me before the world was.
Lord (notice this is not LORD (Yahavah), it is Adonai, which denotes Jesus), You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. Psalm 90:1-2.
And I answered that prayer. I had already revealed this many years earlier to My prophet Daniel:
“I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; The court sat, and the books were opened. . . I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.” Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14.
And I confirm this again after the prophecy of Daniel was fulfilled through My apostle Paul, whom I took up to the Third Heaven where I dwell, and to whom My glorified Son revealed Himself in His conversation with Paul on the Road to Damascus.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11.
But Jesus was not just asking for Me to share My glorification with Him which He had given Me by His life given to fulfill My desire to reconcile you with Me, He was asking for the return of the GLORY He had before the world began to share it with YOU. He had become one with your humanity, now He wanted to make you one with His divinity as partakers of My divine nature by being attached to Him as a branch to a vine. He wanted the members of the Body to share the glory of the Head. And that too was part of His prayer that night:
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.” John 17:22.
Filled with glory we are united. And I granted that prayer too.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7.
The mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His sanctified ones, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:26-27.
Now, I will ask you a question, what is the glory? Moses wanted to see My glory for He knew it was the nature and essence of who I am. He had seen evidence of it in the mighty wonders of deliverance I worked among them in Egypt and at the Red Sea to set them free, He had seen My cloud of glory when I sent the Manna, i.e., the bread from Heaven, He had experienced the cloud of My presence as My glory descended on Mt. Sinai. He had tasted My goodness, My faithfulness, and My covenant love and he was hungry for more. He wanted to know My glory and take hold of it.
Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And the LORD said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you.” Exodus 33:18-19.
Glory is the exercise of power in love. It produces goodness. My presence and My power produce goodness and that defines glory. Glory brings the imperfect to the perfect and causes all evil to cease. Evil cannot exist in the radiance of the glory, in the presence of glory. My glory lights the Kingdom of Heaven and no evil can exist or come near that light. When the glory comes it produces praise and renown. As Jesus healed the sick, disabled, and demon possessed, the people glorified Me.
Glory manifests around Me in great beauty and splendor and in radiant magnificence. Being in the presence of My glory made the face of Moses radiant as a reflection of what he gazed upon. But that was a fading glory. Now you have My Word and My Spirit in you and you are the light of the world for it radiates from within your spirit, that is, if you do not put My glory in you under a bushel basket of flesh by an unrenewed mind that is conformed to this world instead of being transformed by renewal in My Word.
I would like to go back a bit and give you some of the surrounding circumstances under which this declaration of Moses desiring to see My glory took place. It was just after Moses had been with Me forty days and nights on Mt. Sinai in the cloud of My glory receiving revelations and plans that no one had ever heard before. I gave Him the revelation of all that had occurred from the beginning of the creation of the world and all that surrounds it to the redemption from the slavery in Egypt, in which he was included in as his assignment. It was a download of the first five books of the Bible.
I also had given him the plan of salvation in the plan of the Tabernacle and the shadow of the Messiah in the sacrifices for sin, peace, guilt, and thanksgiving that were to be offered there to cover the sins of the people till the Messiah came. Moses wrote about Jesus.
But as Moses was caught up in the radiance of My lovingkindness, his people, the descendants of Abraham, My friend, built a golden bullock as an idol and were worshipping it in an immoral celebration of debauchery at the base of Mt. Sinai where I had entrusted to them the ten commandments that made them wiser than all other nations. After that idolatry of the people, who had just seen My wonders of deliverance in Egypt and at the Red Sea and were receiving the Manna from Heaven every morning, I told Moses, who interceded for them, that I would send an angel with them to drive out those occupying the land I had promised the descendants of Abraham but I would not dwell among and go up with them because their hearts were too hard against Me, making them a rebellious people, that I could not draw near to lest divine justice require punishment.
But Moses interceded all the more. He had a conversation with Me:
“Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” And the LORD said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?” The LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” Exodus 33:13-17.
I know those who are Mine, whose hearts and towards Me and have not turned to idols.
But do you see? It is My presence with you that distinguishes you from those of the world. It is in My presence that you enter into My rest, and that is where the glory (the goodness) resides. When I am in you and with you, you are set apart as holy, as separated from the profane and the immorality and evil of the world. You are in the world but not of the world.
And it is the sanctifying presence of Christ in you that now fills your inner man, your inner sanctuary, the temple of your spirit, with the Spirit of Holiness that sets you apart as precious, holy, and filled with glory. But to walk in this oneness of glory you must renew your mind to My Word, for it is My Word that sanctifies you in truth, so that you know who you are and what you have in Christ. And Jesus prayed for that that night of the Last Supper.
“But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Your Word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” John 17:13-19.
Do you see? Your joy, your sanctification, your consecration, your perfect protection from evil, all have to do with whether you will receive My Word, which implanted in your spirit has the power to save your soul (mind, will, and emotions).
And what did Jesus say about you who are His disciples?
I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. John 17:6-8.
And you were not left out.
“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:20-21.
Who is a disciple? How do you know if you are one? Let My Word define it for you and you decide if you qualify. Always remember though that Jesus came to call sinners to repentance and to qualify the ungodly as godly, if you are willing to come to Him and learn from Him. Obedience is better than sacrifice.
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31-32.
Continue in, remain in, abide in, meditate in, speak, hear, and do My Word day and night and you are truly My disciple and you will make your life prosperous and successful in every area—spirit, soul, and body. Joshua 1:8; John 15, Proverbs 4:20-27. I am faithful and I will bring it to pass. 1 Thessalonians 5:23. I will complete the good work of glory I have begun in you as we go from glory to glory as you behold Jesus, your Messiah and Lord, who is My Word. Keep your eyes on Him, the Word, for He is the author and finisher of your faith, for faith comes by hearing, hearing My Word. It always goes back to the birth canal of My imperishable Word.
I love you. Born again from above you are birthed into glory. And when My glory appears, your joy is full.