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The Sapphire of His Glory

by Jerry Ousley  
8/22/2014 / Christian Living

I've not had the privilege to meet many of the "rich and famous." I haven't shaken the hand of a president or a blockbuster movie star. However, I did meet a famous guy once. His name is Anson Williams; you know, the guy who played Potsie on the sitcom from the seventies and early eighties called "Happy Days." At that time it was a very popular show, one of my favorites. It portrayed life as teenagers and young adults during the fifties and early sixties.

The way it happened was like this: It was the mid-eighties and I was in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Meyer, Virginia. I was a chaplain's assistant which meant I was on duty most Sundays for the morning services. There were a total of seven services in two chapels. I was working at the larger chapel that morning where they had an early Catholic service, an early Protestant service, then the main Protestant service, followed by a larger Catholic service. We had to set the chapel up for each of these, serve refreshments after each, then count the separate offerings getting them ready to be deposited on Monday, and finally clean the place up before going back to our barracks. It sounds like a "cush" job but frankly it was a lot of work getting everything ready on time.

The chapel in which I was working could seat around five hundred and for the latter two services it was normally full. It happened one Sunday just a week or so before Christmas. I didn't realize that Anson William's parents lived in the area and attended the latter Protestant service. But that morning as the service began one of the other assistants told me, "Anson Williams is in the congregation today. He's home visiting his parents for Christmas." I sneaked around where I could see through one of the windows in a doorway and tried really hard not to be seen or disturb the service, and sure enough, about three rows from the back, sat Potsie. Wow! A for real star!

I had always criticized people for falling all over actors and actresses. After all, they were only people too and put their pants on one leg at a time just like I did. But let me tell you, it was hard not to gawk. After the service I made certain that I was in a place where I could shake his hand before he left.

We make over famous people but what will it be like to stand in the presence of God? His glory is such that we are told in the Bible that no one in our finite and frail human form can live in God's full glory. One day we will but that will only happen when we have put off our fleshly bodies and have taken on the new body our Lord will provide. Only then can we come close to standing in the full brilliance of the glory of God.

His glory is the sapphire of salvation. A sapphire is normally a blue colored stone, the cousin to the ruby. They are virtually the same except for their color. Because of the ruby of Christ's shed blood, we are restored into fellowship with God the Father, and can experience the sapphire of His glory.

We only get a taste of it here. We step into His glory when we begin to worship Him. We've defined worship several times over the years. It isn't music, it isn't the arts, and it isn't just singing an old hymn. It isn't what we normally define as worship. It can be enhanced by all of these things, but true worship can only come when we realize our inadequacy compared to God and whether physically or in the spirit, fall before Him, acknowledge Him as the all-powerful and give Him the preeminence. We bow before Him, again either physically or in the spirit and in awe of Him we swallow our pride and admit that He is the greatest living force anywhere in any time, and in any place. Only then do we begin to worship.

As we do, we experience His presence. We probably won't see the light of His glory. Few on earth have come close to what Moses was given The Bible tells us that the result of just a moment of the back parts of the glory of God left his face glowing so brightly that for several weeks he had to wear a veil over his face when talking with other people.

But one day, the sapphire of His glory will be granted us. It can only happen when we put off this body of flesh, whether in death or if we are privileged to be alive when the Rapture takes place. Either way we will be changed so that we can finally bask in sapphire of God's full glory.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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