So we talked about how we seek, and when we seek, we learn:
“…if we sought the Lord – that is, if we intentionally took our time, being, and efforts to meditate and essentially enjoy Christ and His finished work, our thoughts and plans would be established through clarification, guidance, and revelation.”
Last week we talked about how, when we seek, we automatically find ourselves praising Him:
Once we used to praise the Lord with the mindset that dictates, in Tagalog, ‘na bababa ang presensya ng Panginoon’; But see here, what is this saying? It’s quite the opposite! Because we are in the presence of the Lord, we are ever singing His praise!
And I have to note that sure, I wrote a whole storm, and I wasn’t finished with everything I sought out to write… I spoke on seeking to adore already, and I should be starting on my message for this coming Sunday (Seeking, For Help by the way), but for some reason something inside of me tells me that I absolutely have to finish all I’ve set out to write about Seeking To Adore.
Again, we seek, and we learn. We seek, and we also find ourselves in awe. But this set of Scripture I also had on last Sunday’s newsletter goes as follows:
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
John 12:27-32
Straight out of those lines, I draw an observation – That first of all, even Christ’s soul was ‘troubled’; We shouldn’t be surprised when we ourselves are troubled, and we really shouldn’t look down on people, even whose of us in the body of Christ, find themselves feeling troubled. Indeed, we have a Savior, a High Priest as stated in the book of Hebrews, that sympathizes with our own weaknesses (‘tempted as we are, yet without sin’ – Hebrews 4:15).
We gather that Christ could have easily asked His Father for salvation, but two things we see as His response: (1) He reminds Himself and those listening that He had a purpose, and this purpose stands even in the hour of trouble. And He goes even further, by saying (2) ‘Father, glorify your name’.
Friends, I suppose I’ve gone through all this song and dance only to say this. Yes, we seek the Lord, and we find ourselves praising Him, and adoring Him… But we see here that in Christ seeking us and dwelling among us, He could say so much, but He intentionally chooses to say, with the same heart of adoration: ‘Father, glorify Your name.’; We seek the Lord, and we praise Him. But before this, it was Christ who sought us, and He also gave praise to God.
I’m not sure if that made a lot of sense, but I’d like to keep on going. See how our Father responds: Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
Man, this may sound impulsive and more of a reaction than a response, but we want to give God glory for His revelations. Why so? Well, we just talked about how we no longer praise FOR God’s presence, but we praise FROM being IN God’s presence, yes… But if we seek the Lord, and praise Him, expecting a response, if we glorify the name of the Lord, well, we can speculate all sorts of responses, but we can surely see His heart in how He responded to His own Son.
To Him, and to us who praise Him, to us who give glory to His name, our Father responds: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
Now I don’t know about you, but that speaks a lot to me already. The Son of God, who already enjoyed God’s presence and glory, who had other options as to what to say, chooses to respond by giving glory to His Father’s name… and one response He and we would hear from Him is that His name has been glorified, and He will glorify it again.
And the way I interpret the rest of the word, is that when God’s name is glorified, two things happen: (1) “now will the ruler of this world be cast out”, and (2) (Christ) “will draw all people” to Him.
Before we had any intention of worshipping God, before we had any idea of how to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, it was Christ who came to glorify His name before any of us thought to do so, and because He glorifies His name through His finished work, so the ruler of this world is cast out, and all people would be drawn to Him.
How does that sound?
Now, I don’t know if this is something I’d like to share as a follow-up to my congregation when I have the chance, of if it’s just something for me to enjoy for myself, but I think I should probably go back to this again and again.
And actually, I do think this should be shared. The church I served in used to make such a big deal of how ‘excellent’ their worship was, according to their standards. But here’s the thing – I think we have some standards we can try to base the excellence of our worship to, according to Christ’s words – That is, has fear been cast out, and have people been drawn to Christ?
Something for our worship team, at least.
And with that, I think I’ll end here. Onward, to this coming Sunday’s message.
Until the next post, God bless you.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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