by Pastor Andrew Morgridge

There is glory within us—Jesus in us. But if you don’t learn to maintain that glory, you will lose it. Psalm 82:6-7 says, “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Demons saw the glory in human beings and fell down. Jesus is that glory. “Christ” means the Anointed One. He is the one that is called the Anointed One. Whatever anointing you think you have as a child of God is just a small portion of Christ. But as you learn of Him, and He becomes the standard by which you live, the glory will continue to rise. The Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3:18 would come alive, which says: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” What you look at is who you change into.

Jesus was the perfect leader. He became the example for everybody. He operated as a king, tempered with the ministry of priest and prophet. That’s why He is the standard. The Bible says in Revelation 1:6 “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”  God gave Jesus who is our leader three ministries. And the ministry of dying to self is going to be your choice. It is when you have chosen this that you become a very effective leader or effective child of God. Let’s take a look at two people who were born with the glory but lost it.

Adam, Glory Lost

Adam was born with the glory of God. He was formed and God breathed on him. God made him in His image, in His likeness. God did not just make Adam to look like Him, He made Him to do things like God. In fact some commentaries say that the image of God is the glory of God. That is the image that every principality, every angel has—they all have it. It’s that glory that’s His image. The phrase, “in the image of God”, simply means a model, a prototype.

There’s a musician in Nigeria called Panam Percy Paul. Sometime ago I was in Andaha, on the way to Jos, Nigeria, a young man came to sing at the conference, I did not need anyone to tell me that this young man was Panam Percy Paul’s son in the Lord because he sang exactly like his father.  If you were standing outside the hall you would think it was Panam Percy Paul that was singing. That is exactly what God is looking for—people who do things the way He does.

But when Adam came to the scene, his emotions got the better of him. The Bible says that Eve ate the forbidden fruit; but in 1 Timothy 2:14 the Scriptures say, And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. In other words, Satan deceived Eve but Adam was not deceived. He simply chose to die with his wife. I don’t know how many years he stayed without a woman before God gave him Eve, but when she told him that she had eaten the fruit, Adam thought to himself: “this woman is dead. I would not see her again and I love her so much. The only way I can continue to see her is to die with her.” He preferred the woman to God. He loved the woman more than he loved God, replacing the Glory of God with the image of Satan.

When you read the words “I was afraid, because I was naked” the Hebrew words there do not speak of not being dressed because in Genesis 2:25 you read: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. But in Genesis 3 Adam was naked, he was afraid, he was ashamed. Something was missing. What was missing is from the word “naked.” It was taken from the word Subtil—“the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made” (Genesis 3:1). So Adam was simply saying, “I have taken on the image of Satan, I’m now like Satan.”

Genesis 2:25 says, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed:” it’s from the word ‘arom’ which means ‘bare’. Now look at Genesis 3:7 “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” Naked here is erom, derived fromthe word subtle used to describe the serpent in Genesis 3:1 which says, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made”. So Adam had no God to point attention to again because by obeying Satan he had taken on the image of Satan. He said it with his own mouth, “I was afraid, naked”. The word interpreted there is not to be without clothes, it’s from the word subtle, to behave like Satan. Adam was born with the glory of God, but he lost it by being disobedient to God and obedient to Satan. And the Bible says in Romans 6:16 that you are a servant to whom you obey; you are Satan’s servant through sin, or you are God’s servant through righteousness. So what is the word that killed Adam? Emotion! He loved his wife more than he loved God.

It’s important for you to understand that being a leader is not the end of everything, you must follow the pattern of Jesus—king, priest and prophet (dead man—to self). See last edition.

Samson—Glory Lost

Just like Adam, Samson also lost the glory of God in his life because of his emotions. He died just like Adam. When Samson was to be born (Judges 13), the angel of the Lord told his mother, Manoah, “you are going to have a child and he is going to deliver his people from the Philistines.” Samson was a judge; he was the one to deliver Israel from the Philistines. So when you stand in the place of leadership, are you leading with your senses? Are you maintaining the presence of God by living in humility, or are you going to be like Samson who was selfish all his life? Samson was born a leader. God said he would lead his people. He was named Samson because when he was born he was glowing, he was shining, he had glory; he was born with glory. That’s why they called him Samson. Samson means shining with the strength of the sun.

When you go out in the afternoon you cannot look up because the sun is shining in its strength. Samson had such glory all over him. He was a Nazarite. God had told the Israelites through Moses about the conditions to being a Nazarite in Numbers 6:1-21. A Nazarite is one that God sets aside for Himself. All leaders in the Lord are called aside to God. A Nazarite is separated unto God for a season—whether the period is three months, one year or six months—you’re the one who would choose.

So in separating yourself unto God, don’t just say, “I’m fasting, I’m separating myself unto the Lord. Do these things as well… Moses told them, “anyone of you who wants to separate himself unto the Lord, this is what you must do:  You must not drink alcohol; don’t touch a dead body; don’t mix. Don’t mess up your life. Stay true to separation.” The same thing we are told in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Have you ever seen a soldier that is not trained? If somebody just comes to your house, grabs you and sends you to the battlefield, I don’t know how long you would last on that battlefield. It’s the training received after conscription that would enable one to fight in a battle. If we have been asked to be good soldiers of Christ, it means there are bad soldiers.

Moreso, a soldier does not fight for himself. Be it a paramilitary, navy, army, or air force, they are representing the nation. They carry the authority of the king, the president or the government. If a policeman accosts me on the road and I refuse, I would end up in jail. And that is because he has the power of the government backing him up. That is who God who says you are.

Leadership doesn’t just mean being prophets or apostles, every Christian is a leader somewhere. Isaiah 32:1-2 shows that every Christian who knows his onions is a leader, because that is who God has called us. It says: “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” Verse 2 identifies who the princes mentioned in verse 1 are. The words “and a man” show that the princes are men. As a leader, you become a shade for others to hide under. You become a river that flows in every direction, blessing people. The river gives water to drink, water for farms; it gives fish to feed them and to sell. God says that is how His princes are, they are full of resources in every area of life. We are all born leaders if we say we have Christ in us and so wherever we find ourselves, we should exercise the leadership that God has given us through Christ. A king shall reign in righteousness, Jesus is in the land as King of righteousness and the princes are those who are born again—man or woman.

Going back to 2 Timothy 2:3-4 which says that a good soldier does not entangle himself with the affairs of this world; they don’t mingle because they’re separated to Christ. They don’t entangle themselves; they don’t get caught up in the affairs of this world—in fun, as the world calls it.  Samson as a leader did not do this despite the glory of God upon him.  He disobeyed all the laws of the Nazarite listed in Numbers 6—don’t drink wine, don’t drink alcohol—But you find Samson always in the vineyard. He passed Timnath where vineyards are, he began taking wine a bit, and then later he took more and more.

 Don’t entangle yourself. I’ve seen Christians drinking alcohol and they say that it doesn’t matter. I was in a friend’s house one day and I told her, “I’m going to Bible Study, I have to leave.” She said, “Wait for me. I’m also going to church.” I said, “Okay, let’s go.” She said, “I’m coming,” and she went somewhere and brought out a bottle of Brandy and poured some. I asked, “Why did you go and drink Brandy?” She said, “One for the road. It’ll keep me warm.” She’s going to church.

I had an uncle who died recently, he built a church for a pastor. He was a naval officer before he retired. He had Doctorates from Bible schools because he so blessed churches. Bible schools around were inviting him for honorary degrees or doctor of theology. If he sees a young pastor he encouraged him with money and land to build a church. But he was drinking alcohol, and he said it was medicinal for him. That’s just on the lifestyle. Samson was taking alcohol, breaking his vows. When he killed a lion, where do you think the lion was? It was inside the vineyard (Judges 14:5). And when he came back he took honey from it. Another breaking of his vows, he touched a dead body. When he took it home he did not dare tell his parents what he did. The Bible says that he did not tell his parents where the honey came from (Judges 14:8-9). Samson lacked humility to obey the laws of God.

Humility must characterise the life of every leader, every child of God. Jesus is our perfect example of humility. The Bible says in Philippians 2:5-11: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Christ Jesus did not consider that He was equal to God, but He gave up Himself to die for humanity. The Creator of Heaven and earth, allowed the people He created to slap Him, spit in His face, pull His beard, removed His clothes, beat Him up and crucified Him. That’s the Creator! He left His glory so that He could be like a human being and die like a human being. That’s what Philippians 2 captured as “He humbled Himself.” Jesus was a true leader, follow after His pattern and you will be able to maintain the glory of God inside you.