glory.

I am guilty, as are so many Christians today of missing the theological significance of the “glory” of our God. It seems that it is often construed as nothing more than a sort of greatness that elicits praise and adoration. This, while certainly being true of our God, fails to recognize the manner in which His greatness has been established and proclaimed throughout the Old Testament.
As I come to understand that God’s glory is rooted in who He is as not only a being of great importance but in fact as the Supreme being in the universe I am led to the idea of what it means to “fear the Lord.” The shear awesomeness of God is both dangerous and good at the same time. This is illustrated in Ezekiel when the “glory of the Lord” departs from the temple and later returns.
Further deepening this idea of “glory” is that YHWH has no equal. Indeed, YHWH has no one mortal or divine that can challenge Him. He is without rival in the cosmos. When He is challenged, like when the Philistines placed the ark (representative of His glory) in front of their god Dagon, He exercises His superior power causing Dagon to topple over and bow before Him.
This is the God that we serve; a terrible, powerful, dangerous, jealous God that demands our allegiance and our worship. And yet in the midst of all that “heavy”, “holy”, and “harsh” glory we also come in humble adoration to glory Him who while able to dominate, instead bowed low and was born a babe in a manger and who humbled himself unto an incapacitating death on a cross.