God reveals — How do I respond?

Yesterday I put a picture of outer space on my Internet browser. It reminds me of the verses that say, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Wow! If the universe is like this, what is God like?

My next thought is a question: Why does this awesome God care about me? I’m a mere speck in His vast creation. Yet He does care and when He reached out His hand to me, I grabbed hold of it, trusting Him to take care of my needs and guide me in the best way.

God takes the initiative, knowing what I will do because He enables me to do it. What if I looked at that photo and only saw the colors and shapes, didn’t think of God at all — just used it to design a quilt? What if I went outside and looked at creation, only to dig out a microscope or telescope and a notebook, trying to figure out where it came from? What if I did consider God exists, but relegated Him to ‘out there’ somewhere, no hand reaching out, not a person who cares about me, not someone I can trust?

And I did those things. I look back now and see how God persisted. He used the sun and stars to set my mind in motion regarding His existence. He used the mistakes I made to bring me to a sense of need for guidance. He used Jesus to show me that He reached out, and He answered prayer to show He cares about me and every detail of my life.

God’s love is always there. It never ceased when I was indifferent or when I said NO. It never increased when I responded nor does it decrease when I ignore Him. He selected me to believe and worked on me until I was ready for the gift of new life and faith. Salvation is God’s doing in those who gladly take His hand and in those who reluctantly admit we need Him. For that, I am truly thankful.

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.” (Psalm 92:1–4)

I’m thankful too for my brothers and sisters in Christ. God persisted with them too, bringing them into His family so that we could experience the fullness of His glory together. Some kick and pull back, but He hangs on to us because His love never fails.

“We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.” (2 Thessalonians 2:13–15)

^^^^^^^^^^

Dear Lord Jesus Christ, for some reason beyond my comprehension, You choose to show mercy and forgive when it seems the more deserving response to my resistance is for You to walk away. You desire that Your people see Your glory, both in creation and in the more explicit and profound revelation of You becoming a man and walking among us, even holding my hand and walking with me.

The power of God

Daniel 7:1–8:27, 2 Thessalonians 1:1–12, Job 41:21–34

God makes His power known in many ways. One is in creation. In the book of Job, He describes a great beast that He formed. Part of this description says: “His belly is armor-plated, inexorable — unstoppable as a barge. He roils deep ocean the way you’d boil water, he whips the sea like you’d whip an egg into batter. With a luminous trail stretching out behind him, you might think Ocean had grown a gray beard! There’s nothing on this earth quite like him, not an ounce of fear in that creature! He surveys all the high and mighty— king of the ocean, king of the deep!” (Job 41:30–34, The Message)

Job stopped questioning God after this description. Since God can create a beast like that, is there anything He cannot do? However, many people have decided that there is no Creator and the worlds around us happened by chance or some other means than the power described in the Bible. They miss seeing the power of God.

Governing the affairs of the world is also included in God’s to-do list. While this power is described in many ways, prophetic declarations and their fulfillment are most amazing. This week, a radio preacher said that at least 100 prophecies from the book of Daniel have already been fulfilled. Imagine God writing a to-do list and over the decades and centuries of time, as those events happen He checks them off.

Yet the list has more events that are yet to happen, like this one: “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:13–14) This points to Jesus Christ whose kingdom is “already but not yet” among us.

God’s unlimited power goes by the theological word ‘omnipotent.” He displays it in a general way like the creation of our planet, and in specific events like prophecy and its fulfillment. But God’s power is also seen in the lives of His people. He has the power to build my faith, to increase my love for others, to protect me from anyone who wants to hurt me, and to even use me to show the world that judgment is coming. His Word puts it this way:

“We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” (2 Thessalonians 1:3–10)

God takes care of me, but He does not ignore those who do not know or obey Him. Some of this passage is not very popular for even Christians struggle with the idea of eternal punishment. Yet God says those who reject His offer of forgiveness and eternal salvation will not enjoy those gifts. How can they when they have made it clear that they are not interested in being with the Lord forever?

My understanding of eternal condemnation is being separated from God without all the good He is and does. There is nothing but emptiness, no beauty or light but darkness and ugliness, no sense of consistent care or a solid rock on which to stand. Instead, there is fear and unsteadiness, no love but alone and abandoned.

My short description makes me feel both horror and gratitude. I am glad to be a child of God who enjoys His power, but there is a great burden in my heart for those who don’t know Almighty God because they have ignored or rejected Him. His power is evident. His love is not far away. All that He is is best displayed in His Son who gave His life that we can know and enjoy our powerful Creator.

More Glory

Deuteronomy 11:1–12:28; 2 Corinthians 3:9–18; Psalm 35:12–28

Many churches and Christians dismiss the Old Testament as old, out-of-touch, not for them. This is sad. If nothing else, ignorance of the OT leaves people without an understanding of redemptive history. It also puts the law of God on a top shelf to gather dust, yet there are blessings in that law that benefit those who keep it.

In today’s OT reading, I wondered about the difference in my life or the life of every Christian if they took these words to heart and put them into practice. (And we cannot keep the law apart from Christ, but if we don’t know it, and He asks us to do something, how will we know if it is Him speaking?)

“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you . . .

“ . . . For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. No one shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.

“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.” (Deuteronomy 11: 13–17, 21–28)

Obedience to God means prosperity, victory over opposition, and total blessing. Disobedience means disaster, defeat, and death. Is that true for me? Actually, I would rather know by experience all those blessings, and have no idea at all of what those curses mean. Twice, the writer of Deuteronomy agrees: “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you . . . Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 12:8-9, 28)

Interestingly, the second reading says something about the blessing/cursing of this OT “obey-you live, disobey-you die” as it compares that notion with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It says, “For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:9)

In other words, if the OT law had glory in it for obedience even though no one could fully obey it, imagine the glory of having the righteousness of Christ freely bestowed so we can live a new life out in the freedom of doing the will of God . . .

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:17–18)

This is the way it works . . . keep my eyes on Jesus. As I gaze into His glory, He works in my life that I might be like Him. Now that is glory!

Ignoring the OT means missing out on the fullness of redemption and the fullness of God’s blessing on those who pay attention to the way we will live as we gaze at Jesus Christ. As He says through the psalmist, “Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, ‘Great is the Lord, who delights in the welfare of his servant!’ Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long.” (Psalm 35:27–28)

Seeing His glory

A favorite chorus often pops into mind. It contains the request, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord . . . I want to see You . . . high and lifted up, shining in the light of Your glory, pour out Your power and love, as we sing holy, holy, holy . . . .”

Reading Isaiah this morning, I’m thinking that if God answered that request when I sing this chorus, my life would never be the same. Isaiah describes what happened to him . . .

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.”

This prophet was totally undone. He said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

At that, one of the seraphim flew to him with a burning coal in his hands. He had taken it with tongs from the altar and touched Isaiah’s mouth saying, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:1–7)

I know Christ and the threat of God’s wrath is gone, but that does not mean I treat Him or His presence with less awe. John walked with Jesus, even called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, but he also had a vision of the exalted Christ and describes this experience using Isaiah’s terms . . .  

“At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian . . . . From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God . . . a sea of glass, like crystal . . . four living creatures . . .  and day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’ And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.’” (Revelation 4:2–11)

Seeing God “high and lifted up” is not like looking at a giant oak, a majestic mountain, or the Grand Canyon. His glory goes beyond all sunsets and spectacular displays of northern lights. His holiness is incredible, His presence never relegated to a mere buddy-buddy, BFF class.

Even though my Lord and God bids me call Him Abba, “the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy” also says, “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

That means if I am going to sing that request of wanting to see Him — and mean it —I’d better be prepared to fall on my face. I am forgiven, but also exposed by His majesty. If I am not contrite before seeing Him, then the burning coals of His glory will surely change my heart.