What Does it Mean to Glorify God?

After today’s Women’s Bible Study, I researched just this question. After all, God is infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, creator of the universe. What can I, a broken sinner, do to bring glory to Him? The whole concept made no sense. One might as well ask a drop of rainwater (acid rain at that) to glorify the Atlantic Ocean.

My seach brought me to this interesting article.

In the Hebrew, the word glorify is kabod; and in the Greek, it is doxazo. Interestingly enough, there are really two different aspects of this word:

First, to glorify means to shine, to demonstrate and to manifest the divine. (Exodus 16:7; 24:16) In other words, glory represents the Lord’s presence.

Quite a tall order. And it gets even more intense:

That glory also filled the tabernacle in the wilderness. Listen to Exodus 40:34-35: “Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle.”

That leaves my head spinning. The same presence, the same glory, that left even Moses, who stood in the presence of God on Mt. Sinai, couldn’t enter into it, is to enter into us.

Glory, then, seems to be the vehicle that conveys and reveals the true presence of God. In Scripture, glory means possession of the character, beauty and majesty that belong to the Lord. It means an exact representation of His being. It means reflecting His presence, His essence, His Life and His Name. Thus, to glorify God is to manifest all that God is. It’s showing forth His Self and not our own. (John 14:13; 16:14) It’s His glory brought to light in us.

Go read the rest. I’ll be stewing on it for days.