Everlasting Light

When the Bible begins, in the book of Genesis, we find God, the Creator of All There Is, "in the beginning", lighting up the darkness.

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.4God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:1-4

The first time we meet God, He is banishing darkness, a darkness which covered everything, consumed all.  The entire creation was drowning in darkness, literally.  Water and darkness were everywhere.  Yet with a handful of spoken words, by the mouth of The Word (John 1:1), darkness fled.

The Israelites stumbled around in the desert until their Jehovah Nissi, their Yahweh God, lit up the night sky with a pillar of fire, a beacon that called them to Him, that guided their way.

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; 

Those who dwelled in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined."

Isaiah 9:2

While meditating on this theme, I poked around the internet, doing a search for quotes about "darkness". What a sad endeavor that was!  There were many quotes from many gifted writers and worldly people.  Most of them were very fatalistic, along the theme of "yes, I'm smothered in the darkness of life with no possibility of escape."  And, yes, this is one of Satan's chief lies.  This is the world's mantra.  Right in the middle of that, God turns the light on.

For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us, a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

and His name will be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of His government and peace

There will be no end,

Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,

To order it and establish it with judgment and justice

From that time forward, even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.

Isaiah 9:6-7

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

God shines brilliantly the light of life on those who "live in Shadowland".  That's all of us, until we embrace His Son, the Light of the World.  Despite our best "efforts", we are unable to banish our own darkness.  As usual, God does it in a way none of us would predict: "the zeal of the God of Angel Armies will accomplish this."  He dispels the darkness in the form of a Child, laid in a feeding trough, in a stable cave.  The Light of the World breaks open the darkness as He is born, Mary's child, yet infant King.

King Jesus said, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  John 8:12

In the bleariness of mid-December darkness, we light Advent candles, to symbolize the eternality of the Light of the World, to proclaim to the lost, to those stumbling in the darkness of this fallen world, that Jesus came for them.  He didn't come just for "the good" or "the shiny ones".  There are no shiny ones.   Until we meet Him, until He floods our souls with eternal Light, His glory divine, we are all feeling our way through the darkness of life.

Those of us who have encountered and embraced Him as our own may be overshadowed by darkness at times.  We may even in our confusion and despair be overcome by it momentarily.  But, this is truth:  Satan's darkness can never triumph over the eternal Light which takes up permanent residence in the heart of the Believer.  That Light can never be extinguished.  Everlasting Light!

Right now, Believer, His Light dwells in you, even as you abide in Him!  We are His light-bearers to a dark world.  One day, though, we will dwell in Heaven, a place where there is no darkness, "no night there".

22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there).

Rev. 21:22-25

Enveloped in Everlasting Light, what a beautiful, blessed certainty!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvD91VKYbM8

Dearest Father, thank you for shining Your everlasting light, "the light of a million mornings", on me. My dearest, most precious desire is to shine Your light wherever You see fit to send me.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Source:

"Everlasting Light: A Christmas Carol for a Dark World", by Claire Cloniger and Mark Hayes
WORD Music, 1986.

Battle Scars to Blessings

Good morning,

There are times we are allowed to see the visible results of the cosmic spiritual conflict in which we are engaged, as followers of Jesus Christ.  Well, actually, all humans are engaged in this war, whether they want to be or not, whether they know it or not.  There are many who are not even aware...

The point is that we don't usually get to see the aftermath.  I believe this is because God protects us from that, knowing that with our human limitations we would be unable to bear it.  We can see the results in our bodies, in our fallen world.  But, if we could see our souls ... they are at the nexus of the battle.  Souls crisscrossed with scars.

The greatest evil in the world battling (albeit with futility) against the Perfect Good.  And, we don't merely get caught in the crosshairs; we are the battleground.  The war is for the souls of men.

Is it any wonder, then, that our lives are not like those Hallmark movies I've been watching this Advent season?  It is so easy to buy Satan's lie - - that God is either not in control or that His love is untrue.

It is so hard to accept that God does not make mistakes, isn't it?  

... that the battle plan somehow got screwed up, that some angelic lieutenant read it wrong ...
Satan's lie, pure and simple.

Joseph must have felt that way, when he was snatched from his home and sold to Egyptian slave traders.  He wouldn't have been more than a teenager at the time.  Jacob, the patriarch of these "cats in a sack", must have felt that way, when he saw his beloved son's bloodied robe.  I know that, if you have lived long enough, you have felt that way too.  Either you've seen a slow unraveling of your "coat of many colors" or you have seen it ripped to shreds in an instant, right before your stunned and disbelieving eyes.  Torn.  Undone.

With the benefit of perspective, having witnessed God's faithfulness through the many trials of his life, Jacob was able to say to his brothers, those unwitting tools of Satan - - -

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

Genesis 50:20

The apostle Paul, centuries later, echoed the same in his letter to the Romans.

²⁸ And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, ²⁹ because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

³¹ What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:28-31

Those circumstances Satan chooses and uses to tear you apart?  God uses them to sanctify you, to set you apart, and to bring Himself glory.  When we look at Joseph, there as he faced his brothers he'd not seen in decades, we marvel at his choice to give God the glory for the things He had done in his life, even though the ways God chose would not have been the ways he would have chosen.  God allowed Joseph to see the good He was able to do through his life's experiences.

Sometimes we, too, are allowed to see how God has used our past, even our present.  Other times, we are not.  And, that's okay, because we can know, regardless, that God is at work.  And, we know that, for those that love God, all things work together for good, battle scars to blessings.

So, what is a blessing then?  All of it, for the follower of Jesus Christ, for the child of God.  All is blessing, all is good.  This is the counterintuitive message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, starting with your all-important salvation decision but then continuing on, blessing upon blessing, to and through eternity.  His Son, our Salvation, the first gift of Christmas, and then as we walk through in faith, we receive "the riches of his glorious inheritance" ... gift upon gift upon gift!

I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him

Ephesians 1:18  (The Message)

Out of the crazy family of Jacob (and they were a wild bunch, for sure), came the Messiah, the Savior of the whole world.  Who but God could have produced His Son from that mess?!  Furthermore, who but our resplendent God could have taken the most cruel, unjust death ever died and transformed it into the most perfect salvation ever imagined?  Only our God, who is a good, good Father.

Only He, who turns our battle scars into blessings.  May His name be blessed forever!  Amen.

"Where is the Lamb, Father?"

Good morning,

7 Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?” “What is it, my son?” he replied. “Here is the fire and the wood,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham replied. The two of them continued on together.

9 When they came to the place God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand, took the knife, and prepared to slaughter his son. 11 But the Lord’s angel called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am!” he answered. 12 “Do not harm the boy!” the angel said. “Do not do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God because you did not withhold your son, your only son, from me.”

13 Abraham looked up and saw behind him a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. So he went over and got the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place “The Lord provides.” It is said to this day, “In the mountain of the Lord provision will be made.”

This time of year always feel dark to me.  When I think of December, in general, I think of words like "dark", "waiting", "resting", "preparing".  When I rise in the morning, it is dark.  When I am cooking the evening meal, it is dark.  I've even gone to do my routine walking by the lights of Christmas decorations.  Dark.

In the midst of this, we light the candles of Advent.  How appropriate that we celebrate the birth of the Lord at the darkest time of our calendar year (here in the Northern Hemisphere)!  He was and is the beauteous, heavenly Light who broke through the darkness of this sin-crippled world to be its salvation.  Lighting the Advent candles reminds me that Spring and longer days are coming, that though all around me appears dead, new life is on the way.

The names of God, written in the Bible, are so beautiful.  Some of them are Adonai, El Shaddai, Elohim, Jehovah-Nissi, Jehovah-Rapha, Jehovah-Jireh.  That last one means, "The God Who Provides".  Yes, He always does.  But, in going to research other occurrences of the Hebrew word, yir·’eh, in the Old Testament, it is more often translated "looks" or "sees".

Yesterday the Hubster asked that I give him some gift suggestions.  There's this one thing that I want and that I truly would use, but when I went to look at its price on the internet, I thought it was egregiously, flagrantly expensive.  In truly seeing, regarding this item, I relegated the item to the category of "want", not "need".  There are just better uses for our money.  So often, we think that there are things we need, when God does not see it that way.

He saw mankind, hopelessly trapped in sin, and provided a Lamb, our Savior.  In so doing, He met our greatest need.  The story of Abraham and Isaac on Mt. Moriah is a prefigurement of how God would provide the perfect Lamb hundreds of years later.

When all seems dark around us, He calls us to light a candle of faith, to trust that He is our Source and our Provider.  The greatest of all our needs is for more of Him, more of Jesus.  When we make Him and His will our first priority it becomes possible to push worry about life's challenges aside. Worry is simply not taking God at His word when He promises that He "will supply your every need according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).  Worry is thinking that God does not know what He is doing, that He will somehow "mess things up".  It often looks that way to us because we do not see as He sees.  We ask, "Where is the lamb, Father?"

Do we truly believe that God sees us in our neediness and that He will meet all of our needs?  If we do believe that, then why do we worry and fret over things which are "out of our control"? (It's all ultimately out of our control, by the way.) Abraham did not do this.  Even when faced with the command from God to slay his son on an altar and then to burn his body with fire, Abraham did not waver.  He trusted God.  I am just "slain" by this.  I would have been freaking.out.  It is little wonder that, when we think of Abraham, we think of stalwart faith.

God provided a ram for Abraham and Isaac, that day on Mount Moriah.  I wonder if the animal was there for some time, even as they were building the altar, stacking the wood, sharpening the knife.  It was not until just the right moment that they saw it.  God opened their eyes ... aligned their will with His.  And, Abraham named the place "The Lord Provides".

Lord Jesus, you are the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  You are all-sufficient and have the answers to all my questions.  You meet all my needs, showering on me glorious spiritual riches.  Thank you for seeing me in my poverty, and in making me yours, making me rich.  Help me to remember this, when the darkness threatens to close in...that You are my light, and my salvation!  In Jesus' name, amen.

Stumps

Good morning,

My father was not a great landscaper.  Basically, when he had our home built, there was no money for fancy foliage.  I was a toddler then.  I remember when the hedge of boxwoods was planted in the large, long planter in front of the house, years later.  The most maintenance work that was done in those days was to trim them and mow the grass.   My husband on the other hand, makes the yard work a creation of art.  At our first home, he planted crepe myrtle trees.  Then, in January, usually, he pruned them down to stumps.  I came home one day to find that he had done this, and was horrified! He had killed our lovely trees!

But, no.  Out of those seemingly brutalized and dead-appearing stumps came shoots, and then branches, and then, unbelievably, gorgeous flowers a few months later.  New life came from the seemingly dead.

11 

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

    the Spirit of counsel and of might,

    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—

Isaiah 11:1-2

Wouldn't you have expected Jesus to be born from a perfect family tree?  A tree with no imperfections?  Yet, the Bible says he sprang forth a Branch from the stump of Jesse's family, a family whose pedigree was hardly sterling.  There was no silver spoon in David's mouth.  He was the youngest, almost forgotten son.  NO ONE would have predicted that the Life who was the Light of Men would spring from David's roots.

Yet, this is what God does - - - He takes the forgotten, the small, the seemingly insignificant, the hopeless - - - and He regenerates, redeems, restores.

Until we met God, our spirits were like that stump.  The Bible declares that we were "dead in our sins" (Ephesians 2:1).  Although created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) there was no hope for us to be restored to God, regardless of our schemes, plans, promises, sacrifices...no hope.  What did God do?  He brought life to the stumps of our lives, through His Son. He irrevocably saved us, just as centuries earlier He grabbed hold of that young shepherd boy, David.  Covering him with His Spirit, He transformed that boy into a mighty king, making him into a man who pursued God with his whole heart.  He anointed that boy the physical ancestor of His only begotten Son, our Savior.

Beyond the miracle of our salvation, through faith in Jesus, we often find stumps in our Christian walks. They are not always resplendent ones.  Most of us have areas we consider dead.  They may be a relationship, a project, a career, a hopeless situation.  We are confronted with what look like lifeless stumps.

Oh Believer!  God is there!  His life is in you, so that your stumps may soon live again.  There is resurrection power through Him, and He is in you.  Seek Him this Advent season and ask Him to reveal Himself to you through those stumps in your life.  Fix your eyes on Him.  Ask Him to show Himself mighty through your challenges and even "failures".  Ask Him to show you glorious, new shoots as you sink your roots deeper and deeper into Him.

Father, we give you our stumps, asking that You reveal Your glory to us through them today.  Even if we see no new growth yet, help us to trust in You, that You have a purpose for every one of them and that Your Spirit within each of us, Your children, is quietly at work.  Faith: the evidence of things unseen.  Please grow our faith in You today, Lord, as we wait this Advent season.   In Jesus' name, amen.

The Accidental, Miraculous Ornament

Good morning,

Today is going to be another one of those crazy days; I woke up and said, "I really don't have time for morning devotions."  But, I looked at the next set of verses as we continue through 2 Corinthians together; and, when I read the first two knew I had to blog today, no matter what.  Here is our focus verse for this morning, 2 Corinthians 6:2 - - 

2 For he says, “I heard you at the acceptable time, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” Look, now is the acceptable time; look, now is the day of salvation!

NET

I don't know why Paul shoved this verse, almost parenthetically, into this passage.  It does not seem to fit, at first glance.  Paul is quoting the first part of a verse from Isaiah (49:8) - -

This is what the LORD says: "At the time I decide to show my favor, I will respond to you; in the day of deliverance I will help you;

NET

I don't believe there is a human being who has ever lived who has not cried out to God for help, at some point in his or her life.  It is the prayer most often prayed.  It is prayed by saints; it is prayed by sinners, by devout believers and by infidels who claim there is no God.  Sometimes it comes wrenching out of us in the midst of the direst circumstances, when faced with the imminence of our deaths, for example.

We were talking about this with some friends the other day, how God answers prayers.  He always answers, but sometimes the answer He gives is not the answer we wanted.  God answers our prayers for His own glory and to further His plans on the earth.  This is why He sometimes seems indiscriminate.  There are times He grants the requests of unbelievers, as much as He does believers. After all, if He did not hear and answer prayers of unbelievers, how would any of us have become believers?  :)

When we pray, "Rescue me, save me!", we are often asking for deliverance from our present circumstances.  Yesterday, after lunch, I sat down to make 25 ornaments for an ornament exchange. A group of ladies from my church banded together to do this so that we could do Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree devotional series with our families during the upcoming Advent season.  The ornament I signed up to make was City of Bethlehem.  I thought, "I'll just order something from Oriental Trading!", since I was cut out to be creative but got sewn up wrong.  (Think about that one for a minute; you'll get it, lol!)  So, that is what I did.  Unfortunately, when I unpacked my little kits, I realized that the ornaments were 7.5 inches in diameter.  Unacceptable.  With the exchange looming (in about 4 hours), and with dinner yet to cook, I was in a pickle.  I sent up a prayer for HELP!

Off to Michaels I went.  The good ladies there gave me some suggestions.  I poked around and found some good deals on materials.  Even though I was WAY out of my comfort zone, I headed home with a cheerful heart.  All I had to do was to stamp the Bethlehem stamp onto the inkpad, stamp the blank ornament and let it dry.  Everything was going great until I realized that the ink was not drying on the semi-glossy surface of the ornaments (which I had thought were like chalkboard, but were not). What to do, what to do....It was 4:00 by this point.  Help, Lord!  Miraculously (again), I found in a cupboard this can of spray fixative which I'd never seen before ... but how long would it take to dry? Google said 30 minutes. Whew!  So, I sprayed all the little darlings and laid them in a large, flat box in the back of my car, to dry.  I had also planned to stamp the reverse side, but the drying dilemma nixed that.  I did think, though, that if I could by some miracle locate the gold Sharpie that was somewhere in my Christmas decorations I could write the Jesse Tree scripture assigned to "City of Bethlehem" on the back of the ornament without much fuss.   Another prayer for help!  God immediately told me where to find it.  It was exactly where He said.

Now, look, there have been other times that I've gotten myself into messes, usually through my own poor decisions, where the Lord has let me crash and burn, ok?  This type of rescue described above does not always happen in response to my frantic prayers.  Simply put, God decided to show me His favor, and I am thankful, very thankful.  I was thinking that, during the month of December, I'll use a picture of each of the Jesse Tree ornaments in my blog post, so that you can see how beautifully creative my FBC Cantons sisters are.  Maybe some of you ladies would like to do this with "24 of your closest friends"!  Here's the link:

http://www.aholyexperience.com/thegreatestchristmas/

There is one prayer for help that God always hears and answers.  When a person realizes his or her own hopeless sinfulness, that without Him there is no hope for eternal salvation, and when Jesus is asked to save that person's soul, the answer is always a resounding, "yes".  This is what Paul is talking about in 2 Cor. 6:2.  Paul expounds upon this verse, however.  He emphasizes that this critical decision, to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, must not be delayed.  "Today (now) is the day of salvation".  No one is promised tomorrow, you see.  Although Paul was writing his letter to believers, he wanted to be sure that any "sleeper cell unbelievers" in the congregation heard the importance of making a heart decision for Jesus Christ right then.

There's nothing accidental about that heart decision.  It is beautifully intentional, on the part of every person who hears the Gospel message and chooses Christ.  It's not accidental; but, it IS miraculous!

Father, thank you for rescuing me, for allowing me to hear the truth about Jesus and giving me the grace to pray that prayer of salvation many years ago.  I'm eternally grateful.  I'm also thankful you sometimes miraculously haul me out of the ditches into which I often get myself.  I praise Your holy name for Your pity, mercy and grace.  In Jesus' name, amen.