Lord Send Down to Me Your Glory
Lord send down to me your Glory,
And I’ll send up to you my praise,
Oh your mercy and your presence,
They bring blessing to my days.
These words begin the chorus to one of the many songs I have written to the Lord. I wrote it during an especially trying time back in 2012 that God took us through in a mighty way. I never thought about it too much until this evening when I was studying a few verses of scripture. While I was meditating on them, I thought about these words and God’s glory. When I thought about God’s glory, I remembered the “Shekina”.
I am reminded of a Jewish text I once read and remember how special the Shekina is to the Jew. It represents the presence of God. Shekinah is the term used to symbolize God’s spirit and His omnipresence. It was another way of referring to God without actually using His Name. I am told that an Orthodox Jew would not speak the name of God as to Him it was too precious and too Holy. The name of God was so reverenced that they would say simply, ” The Lord”, or something like “Adonai”. The Shekinah is the actual radiating or shining, living presence of the Lord Himself! It is the Shekinah that was said to have appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
What an awesome thing it must have been to have seen God’s glory! I know that must have been a life altering experience! Every believer hungers after the presence of God and when He manifests himself to us it is a wonderful experience. It is the kind of experience that leaves you wanting more! When you experience God’s presence nothing else will ever satisfy your hunger for God. It is hard to explain to someone who has never had the experience. It is actually impossible. Dear ones if you have never experienced the presence of God through the Holy Spirit, I encourage you to seek Him with your whole heart. You will never regret it. What’s more, the experience is a free gift given freely to all believers for the asking according to Jesus. I will not go into that at this point except to say God’s filling of the Holy Spirit is given freely to all who believe!
Please allow me to inject some important “Bible Doctrine” at this point. First, a person must be Born Again to ever see God or experience God. What does it mean to be “Born Again”? Jesus said in John 3 these words: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” What does it mean to be Born Again? In the same book the question was asked by a very learned man by the name of Nicodemus. He asked how a man could be born again. Could he go back into his mother’s womb the second time and experience birth again? Jesus replied to his with these words,
5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.“
You see it is not a second physical birth. It is a Spiritual birth. Time and space will prevent me from getting into this too deeply right now. I will however try to explain it as quickly as I can. First, every believer has the Holy Spirit living inside them. Jesus said it this way in Romans 8:9, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”. Without the indwelling Holy Spirit you are not born again. Every believer receives the Holy Spirit at the instant of salvation. When you believe and receive Christ you are from that moment on the dwelling place of the Spirit. How are we born again? How are we saved? Romans 10 explains it in a very understandable way. Read what the bible says here:
8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
First it says “Confess with your mouth”. The word in the English here “Confess” is from the Greek word Homologeo. The word means basically “to say the same thing”. In other words it means to “Agree with God” about your state of being a sinner. It means that you come into agreement with God about where you are in life ,and your need of salvation. You tell God, “Yes I am a sinner”. But then it is not just words from your mouth. These words have to be connected to faith in Christ as the only means of salvation. It must be believed in the innermost part of your being. You “Believe in your heart”. Salvation is by grace (God’s unmerited favor freely given to all mankind) through faith (trusting what God says) in Jesus Christ (the virgin born only begotten son of God). To put it in plain English, you believe that you are a sinner, and you repent of that sin by seeing it as God sees it. By the way, to repent means this: “to turn away from”.
Allow me to illustrate. When I was saved, I saw the sinful life I had lived and understood how much it must have hurt the heart of God. I was sorry for my sins. You must be sorry for your sins too. Then you forsake them. When Jesus told the woman in John chapter 8 who was taken in Adultery to “Go and sin no more” that was a good example of what He wants of us. Now I realize that we cannot live totally above sin, but we can try with all that is within us to do it. When I was saved, the things I loved, I hated. The things I hated, I loved. Let me explain. I hated church, I hated anything that had anything to do with it. If I turned on the radio and there was a preacher on it, I turned to something else as fast as I could! When Christian music was on the radio, I turned it off! When I was saved however, I looked for someone preaching on the radio to listen to. I looked for Christian music to listen to. I could not get enough. I devoured the Bible. I could not get enough of the things of God. I turned away from the old life and to the new one with a vengeance, and loved every minute of it (and still do).
You must repent, believe and confess! Repent of your sins, Believe on Jesus as your savior, and confess with your mouth that you have repented, and believed. Call on God and ask Him for forgiveness from your sins and He will save you the moment you truly believe! Repent comes from the Greek word, “Metanoia”, meaning basically “to to turn away from”, or go a different direction. I will try to explain more in future posts, but for now I need to move on. If you want more information please send me an email to the address on the home page and I will try to respond as time permits.
When you become a Christian you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. But then you are not necessarily “Filled with the Spirit” at that moment. In the Bible we are given a command to be filled with the spirit. In Ephesians 5 the Word says, “18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;” As a believer we are to be as the Greek root words here for the words “Be Filled” mean, “Continually being filled”.
Now back to what I was teaching. I said it is hard to explain to the “uninitiated” or unbelieving. Paul said something along these lines in 1 Corinthians 2 when talking about sharing the things of God to people. This is a lengthy passage but in order to do justice to it I am going to quote the entire section.
1 Corinthians 2:11-16 “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ”. (KJV)
He said that no one can know what is in a man’s heart but the man himself. He also says that no one can know the mind of God but God himself. Then he goes on to state that the great thing about the matter is that God chooses to tell us what is in His heart! Wow! He does this through the Spirit or as the Jews say the “Rauch Elohim” or the “Spirit of God”. He does this so that we can know the things of God.
God teaches through the Holy Spirit, and through the mouths of others who speak as spoken to by the Holy Ghost (Spirit). Paul says when he speaks to spirit filled people, he does so through the words of the Spirit. However when he speaks to those without the Spirit, or the “natural man”, he does not waste his time trying to give them spiritual truths as they could not understand them anyway.
A friend asked me recently how I studied the Bible. I replied that many times, I like to let God speak a scripture to me from reading or memory (you do memorize scripture don’t you?). I then meditate on it and let the Spirit teach me. Remember what the Bible says in 1 John 2, “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him”.
Some will try to use that scripture to say that we don’t need to go to church or to assemble together as Jesus instructed us, and that we can live apart from the people of God and the Church and still please God. That friends is not what this verse means at all.
No matter when God teaches you, it is always the Spirit who teaches you and not man. Man can be God’s mouthpiece but if there is any spiritual truth taught to a spirit led believer it is the Rauch Elohim that does the teaching. That is what Paul meant in these verses. If we always sought the teaching of the Holy Spirit, we would always be taught the truth.
“but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie”.
Want to see the Glory come down? Let the Spirit teach you the things of God and you will! I don’t care what is your desire regarding your relationship with God, the Spirit’s teaching will lead you to it. When you allow the Spirit to fill you, the Glory will come down as the request in the song, “Lord send down to me your Glory”!
Blessings!
Bro. Tommy
