A Glimpse of His Glory

To make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence! —Isaiah 64:2

The phrase “at your presence” is repeated three times in the first few verses of Isaiah 64. It’s a picture of what can happen when God’s presence comes and visits His people.

The Puritans talked about three different aspects of the presence of God. First, the omnipresence of God—that He’s everywhere all the time. Second, the cultivated presence of God. That’s what we mean when we say, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Then there’s the manifest presence of God, where God’s glory and power is experienced in an unusual way.

The manifest presence of God is all over heaven. But here on earth, we don’t experience it a lot. Yet there are those moments in the life of an individual or church, sometimes even a nation, when it’s as if God were drawing back the curtain and giving us a glimpse of something we can’t see in its fullness until we see Him face to face. It’s a glimpse of His glory.