Crowns - Part 3 - GLORIOUS!!

Okay one last thought about crowns.

The passage of scripture that really grabbed my attention when I started thinking about this topic is from the book of Revelation. It reads:

Revelation 4:9-11 (NIV)
9 Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being.”

The elders in this passage are the representatives for the church of God. In other words they represent each of us who have had the crowns of righteousness and life placed upon our heads.

This passage tells us that when the elders are in the presence of God they take off their crowns and lay them before the Lord. This is the point that really captured me as I considered the crowns. Think about it – as much as the crown of righteousness means to us because it represents the work and sacrifice of Christ on the cross that covers our sin and allows God to declare us as justified before Him; and as much as the crown of life is cherished because it represents our willingness to persevere in our faith in the midst of a world that will hate us; neither means anything compared to the surpassing greatness of just being in His presence!

God is so incredible and so glorious that everything else pales in comparison! The work of Christ on the cross, my own perseverance in faith all pale when compared to Him when He displays His glory!

We do not serve a mundane God. We do not worship a stale God. We do not bow before a God who is beige. We serve, worship and commit our lives to Him who lives in unapproachable light; the one whose glory is indescribable and whose might stretches beyond my own ability to imagine. We are children of the King, purchased with the cost of His own blood – but none of that compares to the sheer delight that we will experience at just being in His presence!! He truly is worthy to be praised and nothing that I might gain in this life or the life to come can compare to Him! Let us bow before Him and present our crowns!

Philippians 3:7-8 (NIV)
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ…