Mike Focht 1/23/2026
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
John 17:24
Heaven will be eternally new because of the infinite glory of God. The glory of God is hard to define. The Old Testament and New Testament words for glory carry the idea of outshining and weight. Really, God’s glory is an attribute of His attributes. The glory of God is seen or known when we personally experience the outshining or weight of His infinite perfections.
Wherever something is truly known and experienced of God, we experience something of God’s glory. Noah saw it in God’s judgment. Abraham saw it as he placed his aged finger into the tiny hand of a baby. Moses saw it in the miracles in Egypt and the glittering train of His passing. David experienced the glory of God as his eyes surveyed God’s magnificent creation. God’s glory was seen perfectly in the person of Christ Jesus. The needy crowds saw the light and weight of God’s person through the compassion and kindness of Jesus. They knew God’s glory in His speech through the weight of His authority and the power, light, and truth of revelation. Peter, James, and John saw and felt the glory of God in the transfiguration.
In this passage in John, Jesus prays that it is His will that all who are His would experience the glory He had before the world was created. In eternity, that prayer will be answered. The glory of God will be experienced as His love grows brighter and heavier, as His beauty grows brighter and heavier, as the wonder of His new creation grows brighter and heavier, as His wisdom grows brighter and heavier, and as the crushing weight of all He has done for us in Jesus Christ grows brighter and heavier. The glory of God will make us say, like Peter, It is good for us to be here!
The light of God’s literal glory will warm and permeate every aspect of eternal life. We will share it in our heavenly, glorified bodies. We will see the light of His glory streaming through the streets and walls of the New Jerusalem. We will smell and taste the glory of God in the tree of life. We will drink it in as we kneel on the banks of the river of life, quenching our thirst with living water. We will hear it in the praises of men and angels. We will see it in the very face of God.
It will be the infinite light and weight of God’s glory that will cause our visceral response to be worship—whether in words, works, or songs. Worship will become the effortless occupation of heaven’s citizens because every new experience of God’s glory will elicit the untrained adoration of the soul, the genuine overflow of the sinless heart brimming in the glory of God. God’s eternal glory will make every facet of eternal life better. Every song sung will get better. Every task undertaken will get better. Every relationship built will get better. Every day lived will be miraculously better than the last because of the glory of God.
We can experience this now on certain levels. If a young saint sincerely sings the old hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, they do so with a limited understanding. But as their relationship with the Lord grows, as their understanding of His glory grows, so will the song, even though the lyrics don’t change. The hymn will have a different understanding or weight sung by the same believer at forty, sixty, eighty, or on their deathbed.
Similarly, the angels who sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” before the throne of God don’t need to change their lyrics because day by day, their understanding of the glory of God deepens the lyrics and makes them new. The spiritual element becomes the enlivening element. The song doesn’t need to change when the singers have! Eternal newness will be more than words. It will be the constant, ever-deepening understanding and majesty of the glory of God.
Eternity must be set in an eternal glory, and only our God is eternally glorious. He alone can claim to make all things new! Every new experience of God’s glory will make life fresh in depth and weight. Don’t ever fear eternity. The God who makes all things new has designed our eternity to be lived in eternal glory, love, and personal relationship. Eternity will be so new and so glorious that the idea of “forever and ever” will be one of the best thoughts of eternity.