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We are in the end-time move of God. It will unfold as the greatest move of God humankind has ever experienced. And as body of Christ, we are responsible for sustaining His glory.
Some seasoned churchgoers will watch this from a distance because they’d rather hold on to how things were done in the past rather than enjoy the adventure of God’s fresh way of doing things.
Others will be repelled from the glory of God because they’d rather tolerate sin than pursue holiness. Some will get caught up in the emotion and excitement of it all and fizzle out along the way.
But we, NoLimits Church, will sustain God’s glory.
It will impact everyone we encounter. People will hear of the healing miracles and deliverance going on at NoLimits and will start chasing us down.
But they’re not going to be chasing after us. They’ll be chasing after Jesus. And He will heal all who are oppressed of the devil through the work of our hands and the words we speak.
When you examine the ministry of Jesus, He didn’t chase people down. He simply went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil.
Then the woman at the well went and told her entire town. The man delivered from demons went and told everyone he knew. It didn’t take long and crowds were chasing Jesus down.
That’s what’s coming for our church. We are right on the verge. The sparks of revival are already flying. It won’t be long until it’s a blazing fire that purifies the city of Owasso.
What is God’s glory?
We are the carriers of God’s glory for our city. But to sustain God’s glory, we must first know what it is. Thankfully, Mosses asked this very question, and God answered. Take a look:
Exodus 33:18-19 NKJV – Moses said, “Please, show me Your glory.” Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.”
The question is, “God, what does your glory look like?” And His response, “I will make ALL My goodness pass before you.”
The glory of God is all of the goodness of God combined.
The glory of God is the package that holds all the goodness of God.
When we experience God’s glory, we experience all of His goodness at once, which is why it is so overwhelming.
Regarding His glory, God also said, “I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you.”
The glory of God is revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the glory of God on display for all to see. Jesus is the goodness of God made visible.
God’s glory is all of His goodness goodness combined. The One who delivers this package of glorious goodness is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the open door to the glory of God.
Through Jesus, we can experience all the goodness of God. We don’t have to wait for heaven. We’ve already gained access to God’s glory through Jesus.
If the glory of God is to be known, we must first receive ALL of God’s goodness in our own lives. If we reject His goodness, we keep others from seeing the glory of God.
If you wait for heaven to walk in healing, you deprive yourself and those around you from experiencing the glory of God, and for no good reason.
If you wait for heaven to live in the blessing and prosperity of Abraham, you deprive yourself and those around you from experiencing the glory of God, and for no good reason.
If you convince yourself that life has to be hard instead of taking on the easy yoke and light burden Jesus promised, you deprive yourself and those around you from experiencing the glory of God, and for no good reason.
Have you noticed how religious people get upset about the goodness of God?
I’ve been criticized for teaching about healing and prosperity more times than I can count. It’s always shocking to me how the goodness of God is so controversial with church people!
Religion makes you think that if you receive the goodness of God in your own life somehow someone else is missing out. They say, “You should focus on Jesus, not your own healing.”
Let me tell you why you don’t have to choose one or the other. Actually, let me tell you how evangelism – sharing Jesus – becomes more effective when you receive God’s goodness first.
God wants you to receive all of His goodness. Because when you do, His glory is on display for all to see. When you walk by, people should see all of God’s goodness pass before them.
God has healing for you. He has deliverance for you. He has unending joy and peace for you. He has an endless, abundant supply of resources for you. He has a life for you where the burden is light and things come easy.
It’s about time you punch religion in the throat and recieve all of God’s goodness. You’ll be much better at leading people to Jesus when you are not sick and broke and worn down and grouchy.
God’s glory is all of His goodness combined. And we’ve already gained access to God’s glory through Jesus Christ. All you have to do is stop rejecting the extravagant gift, humble yourself, and receive.
Required Humility
It takes humility to receive God’s goodness. You have to admit your religion is worthless. You have to give up your own way. You have to die to yourself in order to receive God’s goodness.
You can have it your way or God’s, but not both.
This reminds me of Job. He was going through absolute hell, and he and his friends used such eloquent words to explain why. They were defending God and truly sounded wise.
When reading the book of Job for the first time, you’d probably agree with what they were saying. It all sounds very religious and they were confident in what they were saying about God.
After they exhausted everything they had to say, God cleared it all up. Take a look:
Job 38:2-4 NLT – “Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorant words? Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.”
It takes humility to receive God’s goodness. You have to admit that your “wise” ideas don’t stand a chance against God.
Do you know what happened when Job humbled himself before God? He received and outpouring of God’s goodness. The later part of his life was better than the former.
I recently learned that many people fail to receive healing because they refuse to humble themselves before God. It sounds like this, “I do have faith to be healed! So, God must not want to heal me.”
That sounds very confident and religious. But Jesus revealed that everyone who had faith was healed. He even said this:
Mark 11:24 NKJV – Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
In other words, when you truly ask in faith, it happens.
If you say you are in faith but are not seeing the results, rather than doubling down on your prideful statement of, “I do have faith!”, it would be much better to humble yourself before God.
In Mark 11, Jesus also said that a condition of pure faith is no doubt. None. Not a little bit hidden in the corner. Not even that unsuredy hidden deep within your heart. No doubt.
So, here’s what humbling yourself sounds like, “God, I think I’m in faith, but clearly I’m not because the results aren’t there. I know it’s not You. So where am I missing it? Where is the doubt?”
As you humble yourself before God, you’ll step out of pride and into all of God’s goodness.
Sustaining God’s Glory
Now that we know what God’s glory is, let’s find out how to sustain it. It would be a bummer to only have a fleeting experience of the goodness of God.
There’s no one better to teach us than Solomon. He experienced an incredible measure of God’s glory. But, he failed to sustain it.
As a young man, Solomon asked God for wisdom. Not fame, not fortune, but wisdom. So, God poured out His wisdom, and Solomon became incredibly wise.
This wisdom enabled him to achieve a level of success, fortune, and fame that was unmatched before and has not been experienced since. He even shared this wisdom with us through the book of Proverbs!
He was an incredible king. Everyone under his leadership lived a prosperous and productive life.
But, at some point along the way, he became wise in his own eyes. He got his eyes off the source of wisdom and became consumed with the results of wisdom.
Then came the book of Ecclesiastes, where he wrote all about his meaningless existence. Everything is boring. History merely repeats itself. There is nothing new under the sun.
In his most dramatic state, He said, “The day you die is better than the day you were born.” Have you ever had a pity party like this?
Solomon went from a thriving, exciting, successful life to a tailspin into dramatic pessimism. He went from loving life to questioning his existence.
But his story doesn’t end in the dumps. He eventually made his way back to where he had started. He put his eyes back on the source of wisdom. Take a look:
Ecclesiastes 12:13 NKJV – Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.
Solomon experienced an incredible amount of God’s glory. Then he experienced the sheer disappointment of his own glory. After experiencing both sides of the spectrum, he gives us the only way to sustain God’s glory:
Fear God and keep His commandments.
Fearing God
What does it mean to fear God? Does it mean to be afraid of Him? Oh no. It means to be afraid of turning away from Him.
Some people think that when we sin, God turns away from us. But that’s not it. When we sin, we turn away from God. And the deeper we go, the further we walk away from His goodness.
Moses sums it up nicely:
Exodus 20:20 NKJV – And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.”
Was he contradicting himself? He said, “Do not fear… so that His fear may be before you.” This is not a contradiction. These are actually two different Hebrew words, both translated to fear.
The first one means ‘to be afraid’. The second one means ‘moral reverence.’ Moses is saying, “Don’t be afraid of God! Reverence Him by the way you live.”
Distortion of God’s Grace
For several decades, the American church proudly preached grace without balancing it with the fear of God. Now we have a generation that thinks grace means that God is going light on sin.
That’s why less than half of American pastors have a biblical worldview. We have entire denominations that refuse to speak against the slaughter of babies through abortion.
One of the most well-known pastors in America is affirming those struggling with the sin of homosexuality. He preaches that God is okay with their behavior and there is no need to change.
The distortion of God’s grace is the heresy of our day. When we use God’s grace to justify a sinful life, we might as well say we follow the Antichrist because it is the exact opposite of what the Word of God teaches us. Take a look:
Hebrews 12:28-29 NKJV – Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.
This ought to shake what you’ve believed about the grace of God. We’ve gotten way off track.
The grace of God is not God going light on sin. Grace is the power that enables us to live without sin!
Let us have grace. Because grace gives us the ability to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
For our God is a consuming fire. By His grace, He destroys everything in our lives that is not of Him.
The next time you hear about someone struggling with sin, don’t you dare say, “Don’t worry about it. We have God’s grace.” That nonsense has to stop.
The right response is, “Let the fire of God consume that sin and get it out of your life. Lean into God’s grace because it holds the power to free you from sin.”
Here’s another scripture that brings this home:
Romans 2:4 NKJV – …the goodness of God leads you to repentance.
If what you are calling God’s goodness leads you to a place of tolerating sin, it is not God’s goodness you are talking about.
The goodness of God always leads us away from ourselves and towards Him. The goodness of God repels us from sin. Sin loses its appeal when we experience the goodness of God.
God’s grace and goodness bring the fear of God into our lives. Not to make us afraid of God but to draw us closer to God.
What is the fear of the Lord?
The fear of the Lord is a new concept for most of us. We’ve heard about it, but American Christianity abandoned it long ago. So we have no idea what it actually looks like to fear the Lord.
The fear of the Lord can’t be explained in a few works. It has to be examined from every angle to get a full understanding. Let me help you out.
To fear God is to be in complete awe of Him.
To fear God is to honor Him above anyone or anything else.
When we fear God, we take on His heart. We love what He loves, and we hate what He hates. What is important to Him is important to us. What is not important to Him is not important to us.
To fear God is to hate sin. To fear God is to hate injustice.
To fear God is to depart from evil in every sense – thought, word, and action. It is to refrain from speaking deceitfully. It is to cast down every thought that is contrary to God.
To fear God is to walk in humility before God and mankind.
To fear God is to give Him the worship He deserves.
To fear God is to submit all of our resources to Him for His use.
To fear God is to tremble before Him in wonder and awe. It is to give His Word and presence our full attention.
To fear God is to obey Him, to carry out His will no matter the cost.
We’re talking about eagerly immediately obeying, even if we don’t see the benefit, even if it doesn’t make sense, we carry out His assignment to completion.
To fear God is to abstain from any form of complaining, murmuring, or grumbling.
To fear God is to respect, honor, and submit to His direct and delegated authority.
The fear of the Lord shapes our intentions, thoughts, words, and actions.
The Key to Sustaining God’s Glory
We need the fear of the Lord. We need to humble ourselves before God. We cannot sustain God’s glory without the fear of the Lord.
God is pouring out His glory now. We’ve already tasted it. And it will continue to intensify.
We will see not just some of His goodness but ALL of His goodness. And it won’t be long before His glory announces the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So today, the Holy Spirit is pleading with us to be faithful carriers of God’s glory. He is looking for those who fear the Lord because they are the only ones who can sustain this final move of God.
How many of you say yes? Who will fear the Lord and be a faithful carrier of God’s glory?
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