Walking Into the Glory
By Rick Joyner
There are progressive steps to maturity in Jesus
Christ. These steps are outlined several times in Scripture, yet it seems that
few Christians even know about them, much less follow the course where they
lead. The failure to know these steps is probably the greatest reason for the
defeat of those who fail to walk in a victorious Christian life. Our goal is to
first see and understand these steps to maturity, while beginning the ascent up
the mountain of the Lord, conquering ourselves and the enemies assigned to
thwart us. At the same time, we must grow in vision, faith, and power which is
the sure result of maturity in Christ.
The first step toward the success of any journey is to
understand where we are going. What is our destination in Christ? Simply put,
it is to have our intimate relationship with God restored, to become like Him,
and to do the works that He did. Also necessary to successfully navigate to our
destination is knowing where we started from. A map with the destination
clearly marked will not do us any good unless we know where we are presently
located on the map. So these two matters are foremost as we begin—first
understanding where we are going, and then understanding where our starting
point is.
The Fall of man
was the result of our first parents disobeying the commandment of the Lord.
Disobedience was then sown into the fabric of man's nature. If you read the
first two chapters in the Bible, and then the last two, you have the complete
story. Everything between those two chapters deals with one essential subject—redemption. The goal of redemption is to restore
man to his original condition before the Fall, which is walking with God,
obeying Him, and fulfilling His mandate to rule over the earth.
However, by the
unfathomable riches of God's grace, He also established that He would not only
restore man to the condition from which he had fallen, but raise him up as a
glorious "new creation."
This new creation man was to be much more than simply restored to the condition
of the first Adam. God walked with Adam in the garden, but the new creation man
actually has God living in him! God has actually made man His temple and God
now dwells in man! This is so glorious that it is often difficult even for
those who have tasted the gift of salvation to fully comprehend.
The Lord created man for His pleasure, and the Lord's
pleasure comes from having fellowship with men. He loved walking with Adam,
teaching, and listening to him. This was the most tragic loss of the Fall—man's
relationship to God. The ultimate purpose of redemption is the restoration of
that relationship. That is why the Bible is composed almost entirely of stories
of how the Lord has related to men and women in this redemption process. The
ultimate quest of every Christian life is therefore to be the intimate friend
of the Lord. If there is any way we can measure true Christian maturity, it
will be by how close we are to God.
Moses had one of the most special relationships with
God that any man has had. An example of this relationship is found in Exodus
33:9-11
And it came
about, whenever Moses entered the tent,
the pillar of cloud
would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent;
and the LORD would
speak with Moses.
When all the people
saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent,
all the people would
arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent.
Thus the LORD used to
speak to Moses face to face,
just as a man speaks
to his friend.
Think how wonderful it would be if every time we
wanted to speak with the Lord, He would descend from Heaven and speak with us
face to face just like He did with Moses. Do you think that would make your
prayer life a little more exciting? However, the Scripture states that what we
have in the New Covenant is even better than the relationship Moses had with the
Lord, as we see in II Corinthians 3:7-10
But if the ministry
of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory,
so that the sons of
Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses
because of the glory
of his face, fading as it was,
how shall the
ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?
For if the ministry
of condemnation has glory,
much more does the
ministry of righteousness abound in glory.
For indeed what had
glory, in this case has no glory
on account of the
glory that surpasses it.
Here we see that the glory of what we have been given
in the New Covenant is so great that what Moses had, even the visible glory
that reflected from his face, can hardly be compared to it! We do not just meet
with God face to face—we have Him living inside of us! He does not just descend
to meet with us—He dwells with us continually.
Because Moses met
with God face to face, his face shone with the glory of God. However, since God
dwells inside of us, our whole lives should reflect His glory, not just our
skin, but in everything we do. This is our calling—to be His temple, the place
where His glory is manifested. This is our quest, which is more than
understanding it—it is doing it. Our maturity will be reflected by how much of
His glory is manifested through our lives. The reality of this should be just
as clear on Monday morning as it is on Sunday morning.
We are going to study the progressive
steps to maturity in this calling. I will lay an outline, and occasionally give
references to other works for a more extensive study. However, we must always
keep in mind that our goal is not just to study, but to walk in the maturity of
our callings.