The great rich God has loved to life great poor sinners (Ephesians 2: 4, 5).

Joined together at heart and hip with Jesus: quickened together with Him, raised together, royal and regnant together in Him, great poor sinners are now…glorified sinners!

This truth is set forth and celebrated in the Scriptures.

Truth in words is ours now to live—the glorious life.

Just how? How to life gloriously in a pandemic?

As always, it means living by biblical glory, divine glory, guided gloriously by the sacred word.

Netflix is not a faithful guide to the glorious life. Watching NFL reruns and football greats, or living off one moment of glory you had in the fourth grade will not get you off the ground. Longing for the glory of fame, wealth, comeback, or trophy, or of some strutting model or Hollywood star…this is not the way of heaven, nor the way to heaven, nor living the heavenly life…

The word from heaven is for the life of heaven.

The Bible says much of this glory life. Here are three things:

Living gloriously is living the sanctified life, seeking to be as distant from sin as Christ, children of God.

Living gloriously is living by faith as new creatures in Christ in our normal, daily lives and calling.

Living gloriously is living to bear the reproach of Christ.

That is it. That has always been it. It is the life we preach, live, and die for, now.

We live gloriously as blessed new covenant heirs. In a pandemic. In the kitchen. Celebrating birthdays. Fearing threats. Mourning deaths. Worshiping on the Lord’s Day. Working and waiting for work and waiting mostly and eagerly for Christ to come again.

We for whom by grace all things have become new and for whom the new normal is glory…

Live gloriously, beloved: holy, in every day things, bearing the cross of Jesus.

Though this life from above is what most call inglorious—as inglorious and scandalous as a babe born in a lowly manger, a holy God loving sinners, a king who dies on a cross…

Though this glorious life, this true religion of believers is called a pestilence, a veritable plague in the land: Christian-ViD-1…

This is the life God gives: blessed, and to His praise.

For such a time as this.

With you in Him, confiding in the Savior and His truth and love,