Leading up to our wedding, my fiancée (now my wife) and I had to secure a service provider for our wedding cake. The budgeted expense for the cake was unlike anything I had ever paid for a piece of confectionery! So, she and a friend went to one of the good bakers in town for a cake-tasting session. They tasted various flavors of cake, including vanilla, fruitcake, chocolate, lemon, and several others. The baker was kind and prudent enough to ask my fiancée to take some samples home for me. Tasting the different flavors overcame my reluctance to commit to the considerable fee and engage the baker's services, and it all turned out well. The flavors we chose were a foretaste of what we would have on our wedding day. All I had were little morsels of the different flavors, but these were enough to tip me over into committing to the huge fee for the cake. The actual cake delivered on our wedding day was, of course, far grander and more ostentatious, with champagne, sparklers, a bride-and-groom figurine, and several tiers.

Similarly, the glory of God promised to us in the Scriptures is a far cry from what we are experiencing now, but God has liberally interspersed our journey thitherward with foretastes of that glory.

Hebrews 6:5 (KJV)
5  And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
Psalms 34:8 (KJV)
8  O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
1 John 3:1-2 (KJV)
1  Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Our glory is a future hope, for Christ is in us as the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), and hope that is seen is not hope (Romans 8:24). But God, in His goodness and kindness, has given us foretastes of that "glory that excelleth" (2 Corinthians 3:10), that we may be all the more convinced of the coming weight of glory and give ourselves wholly to it.

You may ask, then, how does a man taste of that glory and enjoy its benefits? That question is open-ended, and several kinds of answers may suffice, because God's grace is manifold (1 Peter 4:10). But I will answer in the words of Jesus, ever so succinctly.

Matthew 12:38-40 (KJV)
38  Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
39  But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40  For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 16:1-4 (KJV)
1  The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.
2  He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
3  And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
4  A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed.

Twice in the Gospel penned by Matthew, Jesus speaks of the sign of Jonah as the hallmark sign for all who would require proof of His claims. Why, then, is it important? And why this sign, rather than any other? The sign of the prophet Jonah points to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Matthew 12:40), which, when believed, brings a man into the new creation and adoption into God's family.

Romans 10:9 (KJV)
9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

This alone is God's designated route by which a man may see the Kingdom of God.

John 3:3 (KJV)
3  Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

I could have pointed to testing the Lord by giving of one's substance (Malachi 3:10), but one may do that and still remain outside God's covenantal covering. So I would rather, like the Lord, hold out firmly the sign of the prophet Jonah, that is, His resurrection, believed and acted upon. For the principle remains that if you believe, you shall see the glory of God.

John 11:40 (KJV)
40  Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ comes before seeing the foretaste of glory.

John 20:29 (KJV)
29  Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

It is more blessed to believe before seeing than to believe after seeing. But it is as certain as tomorrow's sunrise that if you will believe, you will see the glory of God.

Hallelujah!