My First Revelation of 2017

I am excited about my first special find in scripture in 2017! The year was still so new that folks on the West Coat were still back in 2016 when I discovered this jewel.

I found it in what is sometimes called The Doxology of Jude.  Beginning with verse 24, it is probably the most well-known part of the book of Jude, and in the King James Version it goes like this:

     Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

When I encounter a somewhat familiar scripture like this one, my brain will tend to click over into standard interpretation mode and hear what I expect to hear. In this case, I'd usually hear kept from falling and presented faultless. But this year I was reading The New English Bible, a translation that was commissioned by the Church of Scotland back in the 1960s.

Now where King James' men structured their sentence to emphasize how we are presented—faultless, the scholars from Cambridge and Oxford organized it to emphasized where we are presented—before the presence of His glory. Here, read it for yourself:

     Now to the One who can keep you from falling and set you in the presence of his glory, jubilant and above reproach, to the only God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, might and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and for evermore. Amen.

 Jesus can set you in the presence of his glory, jubilant and above reproach! 

What a revelation of perspective! Set in the presence of His Glory!

This is where I want to be for 2017!  Not simply kept from falling, as great as that is, but set in the Presence of His Glory.

I know there are dire warnings about that place. "God is a consuming fire." Regarding it with a casual attitude can result in casualty. "None shall see God and live."  But I am moving closer to a state of wild abandon—and I no longer think it takes a leap of faith to get there. It is possible to just step into it. Enoch did. Moses did. Isaiah did. Elijah did. Paul did. John did. Many have. And Jude clearly believes it is possible for everyone.

I want to be set in the Presence of His Glory and I want others to share it with me.