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I want to talk today about the Glory. And Signs & Wonders. God has really put it on my heart.

I recently went through a season where I wasn’t dreaming in the night. And this was highly unusual… I’ve been a dreamer my entire Christian life.

And one Sunday recently, Kristen prayed for me and something significant broke off of me, it was a powerful encounter, God really touched me. And that night, I had my first dream, a really powerful dream.

God was speaking to me in this dream, telling me that the glory is coming. And I believe it was not only for me, but for this house. God is desiring to reveal and manifest His glory.

The glory of God would come in, and things started to happen. And I want to talk about some of those things.

Biblical foundation:
Exodus 3

My favourite person in the old testament: Moses. You want to talk about power encounters; this guys experienced the glory of God! Powerful signs and wonders followed him.

Burning Bush.
Moses has an incredible encounter. This is His first power encounter with God. He sees a bush. And it’s on fire, but it’s not burning up. How’s that even possible. And then this bush starts speaking to him. So now he has a burning, flaming, talking bush.

And then He says that it’s the Lord. And Moses realizes that He’s in the presence of God, and he hides his face.

And God starts to show Moses these signs. He tells Moese to put his hand in his cloak, and when he pulls it out, it’s leprous. Full of leprosy. And then he puts it back and it pulls it out again. And it’s completely normal. A miracle!

And then the Lord turns his staff into a serpent! Have you ever seen anything like that happen?!

But why did the Lord do this?

Because He had told Moses, I’m going to use you, a wondering desert shepherd, to confront the most powerful leader in the world and to free my people from the slavery of the most powerful national force on the planet.

And that word affronted Moses. It challenged his mind. The way he thought about himself.

But God used His signs and wonders to affront Moses’ mind as well.

God is affronting his mind, the areas of doubt and unbelief, to break those things down! That Moses would believe the word of the Lord concerning his destiny.

And then later in the chapter, the Lord begins to uses signs to confront Pharoah and, fast-tracking through several books of Exodus, uses Moses to free the Israelites. And they were delivered!

So Moses has been through a lot.
When he first met God at the bush, he was afraid. This was his first encounter, it was new for him. And obviously he was afraid.

But Moses is at a place now where He has walked with God. And there is relationship that has developed.

So in Chapter 33, verse 9.

Now they’re free. And Moses is no longer a shepherd of sheep, but of two million people.

And Moses would pitch a tent outside of the camp, and the pillar of cloud would descend at the door of the tent and the Lord would meet with Moses. And the bible says that the Lord would meet with Moses face to face and speak to Moses as with a friend.

This is the same Moses that, when he saw a burning bush, just a bush, he hid in fear!
Now he is talking, face to face with GOD!

He has encountered the glory, the manifest glory of God.
And there is a change happening within Moses.
He is a different man.
He is being changed by his encounters with the glory of God
His faith level is going through the roof.
Challenge after challenge. Encounter after encounter.

And Moses is building relationship with the Lord, his faith is rising. He actually believes that the Lord is the Lord.
So we go from hiding, afraid Moses, to the Lord coming and talking with him face to face.

And then, in the same chapter, verse 17, God says to Moses, “I know you by name.”

God knows you!
And He knows you by name!
You have such significance!

And Moses responds, “Please Lord, show me your Glory!”

Where does that come from? He had seen miracles and supernatural displays of God’s power. And yet he still asks, “show me Your glory.”

And God shows him His glory.

We think that God does this hide-and-seek thing with us because He’s mad at us.
And that’s a lie.

The blood of Jesus had undone all of our mistakes.
We no longer walk in shame or condmenation.
Every wrong thing has been wiped clean.

But the enemy tries to tell us that god only shows it to an elite few.

That’s a lie!
God WANTS to show us His glory!! And you are in the position, through Jesus, to experience it!

And I’ll show you:
Matt. 17

And now we’re in the New Testament! God says that the glory of the New Covenant surpasses the glory of the Old covenant. So that was good, I love the life and the ministry of Moses. But this is even better! We’ve just climbed the mountain to an even higher place!

Jesus’ face shone like the sun.

And when the glory of the Lord showed up, it freaked them out, overshadows them! They’ve never seen anything like this! The transfigured Lord of Glory reveals Himself to them!

Jesus couldn’t wait… He couldn’t wait, even for the resurrection. He wanted to show them who He was. He desires to show us His glory!

Why do Signs and Wonders happen:

1)                  To point to Jesus and to glorify God
2)                  To confirm the word. That the Gospel we are preaching, is the gospel!
*When we preach the God, we see miracles, signs and wonders, to confirm the gospel we are sharing
3)                  To encourage the Body
*There are times when we just need to be encouraged. Especially when we go through hard times. Moses needed to be encouraged!
4)                  To deal with our unbelief.

Unbelief is funny. The first major obstacle of our lives is to believe in Jesus. To come into salvation and be born again.
And the Holy Spirit was sent into the world, to convict the world of their unbelief and to lead them into relationship with God.

John 2:11

Water into wine.

This sign Jesus did…. To reveal His glory!
And why… Because “then His disciples believed!”

Unbelief is a creepy, slimy thing. And it’s not our portion!
The Holy Spirit has been sent to the earth, to challenge our unbelief and reveal the reality of Jesus!

I have experienced the glory of God, and it always brings a challenge to my unbelief, strengthening my faith in God as Jesus is revealed!

Let’s continue to believe for this, as a Body. God desires to reveal His glory to us! And we’re ok with that!

[To hear more testimonies of the glory of God, check out the podcast]
Spoken by: James Maclaren

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