MAGNIFY THE GREATNESS OF GOD

            The Old Testament word for “Glory” comes from the Hebrew word for weight.  The idea behind it suggests something of great substance, or importance.  For example, if someone’s opinion carries a lot of weight (so to speak), it means it has great value.  God’s Glory is a way of talking about God’s weightiness, supreme value, and greatness.  Thus, to glorify God is to honor God, ascribe greatness, magnify the Lord. 

            John Piper (The Dangerous Duties of Delight) offers this way to think about glory: consider the difference between the magnification of a microscope versus the magnification of a telescope.  God’s goal at every stage of creation and salvation is to magnify his glory.  You can magnify with a microscope or with a telescope.  A microscope magnifies by making a tiny thing look bigger than it is.  A telescope magnifies by making a gigantic thing (like stars), which may appear tiny, appear more as they really are.  God created the universe to magnify his glory the way a telescope magnifies stars - to make his greatness visible to us.  Everything he does in our salvation is designed to magnify the glory of his grace like this.

            This past Sunday we read the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11.  Jesus says his sickness will not result in death , but “is for God’s Glory so that God’s son may be glorified through it’ (11:4).  And those who believed did see the Glory of God (11:40) in a spectacular way.  The glory of God through Lazarus is magnified further in the resurrection/glorification of Jesus as Easter approaches.  Hallelujah - praise God!