John 17:5 English Standard Version (ESV) And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

Here Jesus declares to us that His presence is not seen to be in His full glory. The idea being that Jesus was only in HIs full glory in the presence of God the Father. This partial glory is seen by us to be more than we can handle in ourselves. Knowing that the abiding presence of Christ in us is not full glory should be comforting. His full glory is too much for humans.

The human aspect of Jesus desires to be reinstated in His full glory much in the same way that we as His creation want to be reinstated with God in the Garden of Eden. Restoration of glory is being in His presence who is glorious.

Glory is the nature and acts of God in self-manifestation, i.e., what He essentially is and does, as exhibited in whatever way he reveals Himself in these respects, and particularly in the person of Christ, in whom essentially His “glory” has ever shone forth and ever will do. Vine’s definition.

The fact that He will only manifest little bits of His essence has to be based on His love for us and acknowledgement of our abilities to handle all that He is in glory. This will change once we have been translated into our incorruptible form. Then we will be able to stand in His presence, His full glorious presence.

Until then we are left with the reality that we can only glimpse of His glory that serves His purpose in our lives. We might want more but we cannot make God reveal more of Himself than His will allows. This places us in a position that Jesus expresses inJohn 17:5, we desire more.

We want to see more of Jesus in us than we have seen. The trick is that we can only see more of Him by being less ourselves. Can we be less ourselves and still be true? Yes, if we have learned to be humble without being humble by God Himself. It is a matter of free will, to give up self will in favor of entering into His will. Taking that step takes faith and trust in God.

John 3:30 English Standard Version (ESV) He must increase, but I must decrease.

JB shows us what we must do, to see more of Jesus.

John 2:11 English Standard Version (ESV) This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Who were these disciples? According to John chapter one, they were Andrew, Simon, Philip and Nathanael. Andrew heard about Jesus from John the Baptist. Andrew told Simon. All Jesus had to say was “follow me” and that was enough for Philip. With Nathanael, all Jesus had to do was say, “I saw you” and Nathanael joined them.

Now understand this, according to John’s gospel, Jesus had done nothing except speak. The sound of His voice was enough to get men to drop everything and follow Jesus. These men had not yet seen anything done to show who this man they followed actually was. Then at the wedding, He turns water into wine and they have witnessed their first glimpse of glory.

Then they believed in Him. Understand this, they followed Him before they believed in Him.

Is this the way we are in following Jesus? We hear a voice in the wilderness crying out, “repent” or perhaps “this is the Christ”, and we follow because we heard a good word, a word we found acceptable enough to wander down a path that someone we know has taken.

Walk this way far enough and perhaps we will catch a first glimpse of His glory and we will begin to believe. Over time if we haven’t caught a second glance of His glory we might come to a point where we start to doubt the veracity of our first glimpse and wonder “is this all there is to this Jesus?”

These four disciples stuck around and got to witness more and more of His glory. They learned what many of us haven’t come to understand about His glory. His glory is the essence of who He is in relation to His duty to God the Father. Jesus never steps out of character to be more than what the Father is calling Him to do.

Is that all that Jesus is in glory? No. We only get to see those parts of His glory that are needful for us to be faithful to follow. It was something different for Andrew, Simon, Philip and Nathanael, and it will be different for each of us. What that will be is going to be different for each of us because of who we are before Christ enters into our life who who the Father asks us to be after we first believe.

What part of His glory is seen in us is the same for us as it was for Jesus. According to the Father’s purpose for us in this life.