Transforming Glory

API Facilitates Global Convocation

This morning, API broke new ground by facilitating a global prayer meeting hosted by Bakke Graduate University (BGU). Twenty-eight people from around the world, including Uganda, Jamaica, France, Ethiopia, Canada, Brazil, United States, and Ghana, came together for the purpose of celebrating the glory of God and to intercede for BGU.

It was a magnificent time, soaking together in God’s huge, loving, frightening, blinding, mysterious, all-powerful glory. Within the framework of BGU’s triune mission:

Be Transformed, Transform Others, and Transform the World,

we meditated on God’s power and glory as revealed in Scripture. As you read the following four texts, imagine you are there.

2 Cor 3:18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

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Matthew 17:1-8 The TransfigurationRev 4:1-6  The Throne Room of Heaven After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3 And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rain-bow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. 4 Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. 6 Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” 4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

6 When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” 8 When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

Mark 8:22-25 Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida

22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?”

24 He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”

25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

After each reading we indulged in sweet, reflective silence, stopped to journal for a couple of minutes, and then shared our observations. It was exciting to move around the world with our reflections, starting with Africa and the Middle East, then going North to Europe and Asia, and finally, West to the Americas.

We ended in a Concert of Prayer, inviting the whole world to offer intercessory prayer for BGU staff, faculty, students past and present, and for each degree program. What I felt is hard to

People Looked Like Trees

describe. Sensing God’s global Presence was humbling, but also uplifting, and exhilarating, and Holy and filled with peace.

“You are being transfigured to be bright and beautiful like Christ.” – Bill Gaultiere.

Imagine that!