Christian Writers Circle

Glory Revealed
By Brenda D. Flowers

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1: 14, NKJV)

John, who recorded these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was one of the closest disciples of Jesus, often called His beloved disciple. He was a young man when he started his walk with Jesus. John listened and learned from Jesus as he followed Him.

John’s gospel reveals the glory of Jesus in ways that the other three gospels do not. It reveals Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God. This gospel shows how He revealed God’s glory by doing His Father’s will for His life on earth.

John witnessed firsthand the ministry of Jesus and grew in his faith. John was with Jesus when He performed His first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.John traveled with Him to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration and saw the zeal He had for keeping the temple in Jerusalem a place of worship. John, on many occasions, overheard Jesus’s words to the Jewish leaders. I wonder if he heard Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus, when Jesus shared how to become born again.

In those early days of following Jesus, I believe John empathized with the hurt and rejection Jesus experienced as many of their own people, the Jews, did not recognize Him as the Messiah.

John must have experienced joy when a large group of Samaritans at Sychar invited Jesus to spend time with them. They came to Jesus because of the testimony of a Samaritan woman who believed Jesus was the Messiah.  After hearing Jesus themselves, they became the first large group of people to receive the gift of salvation and openly confess Jesus as Messiah and Savior. I imagine the celebration which must have transpired, both in heaven and on earth, as God was glorified.

John, by watching Jesus, saw how He went away to a place of isolation to spend time with His Heavenly Father in prayer. Many of the prayers of Jesus are recorded in this fourth gospel.

Jesus led by example. Let us learn from these prayers of Jesus as recorded in John, Chapter 17.

His Personal Prayer:
John 17:3-5, NKJV, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You,
the only True God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You
Have given Me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which
I had with You before the world was.”

His Prayer for His Disciples:
John 17:8-9a, NKJV, “For I have given to them the words which
You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that
I came forth from You; and they believed that You sent Me. I pray for them.”

His Prayer for Future Believers:
John 17: 20-22, 26, NKJV“I do not pray for these, alone, but
also for those who will believe in Me through their word;
That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You;
that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe You sent Me.
And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be
one just as we are one: . . .
. . . And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love
with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17: 20-22,26, NKJV)

May the revelation of God’s glory be illuminated in our hearts as we trust the words of Jesus. That is my prayer for all of us.