Passage of the Day: Psalm 19: 1 … The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
My Journal for Today: John MacArthur in Strength for Today writes for this date, “God’s glory is the radiance of all He is.” And reflecting on God’s attributes and character, as I have been this month, one would certainly be remiss if we ignored His glory.
However, like the radiance of the sun, we cannot look directly upon God’s glory, … only at its afterglow or reflection. Moses prayed to see God’s face (i.e., His glory), and God would let Moses only see His back (see Exodus 33: 18 – 20). But God has put – and still does put – reflections of glory into the lives of His children to let us see glimpses of the afterglow. Consider these passages in the Old Testament, illustrating God’s glory revealed to His people …
SCRIPTURE: Exodus 13: 21 … By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night.
SCRIPTURE: Exodus 40: 34 … Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
SCRIPTURE: 1st Kings 8: 10-11 … When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.
God simply will not give His glory directly to us – except in the Person of His Son and the indwelling presence of His Spirit … as God spoke through the Prophet, Isaiah …
SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 42: 8 …"I am the LORD; that is My name! I will not give my glory to another or My praise to idols.”
We must be satisfied, as the Psalmist declares in today’s verse, to receive, what I call, “glimpses of glory.” Perhaps this comes through His creation, as I was privileged to see by a lake in Kentucky one morning when I was about to give a talk to a group with a sermon entitled, “God’s Love Through His Creation.” As I sat there on a bench with the sun rising across the lake, two doves flew down and lit about 6 - 8 feet from where I was sitting. They nuzzled one another and cooed for at least 2 – 3 minutes and then flew off TOGETHER. It was as if God was saying to me, “… Bill, let Me give you a glimpse of my love through My creation.” To me, it was a definite “glimpse of glory” from my God.
Perhaps we get glimpses of God’s glory in the unselfish relationship of a forgiving and loving Christian who does something you know to be quite beyond what you might’ve expected from that person. Have you ever been forgiven when you didn’t deserve it? Have you ever extended your love or caring to someone where it was difficult-to-impossible to do so and way beyond what would be “normal” for you? Such acts of humanity are not “natural.” It’s way beyond the natural. That, dear one, is a glimpse of God’s glory being extended in Christ-like manner through another or through you, yourself.
Perhaps you’ve read a passage of scripture which you’ve read many times before; and suddenly you were enveloped by a warmth of understanding and discernment that you’ve never had when you read that passage in the past. It was as if God was shining a light of truth on you through His word. That is definitely a “glimpse of God’s glory.”
And for these special insights into the Glory of God, we must declare, as did the Psalmist [in Ps. 86: 12], …“I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your Name forever.”
My Prayer Today: May all that I am, Lord, be a reflection of your Glory. Amen
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
2010 – December 28 – The Great Anticipation
Study from God’s Word… Revelations, Chapters 4 – 8: 6 … Passage for Reflection: Revelations 8: 1 … NIV When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.
My Journal for Today: Reading Revelations can be revealing, to say the least. But sometimes the figurative language is perplexing; and I require help, like that of my devotional “shepherd” this year, Dr. LaGard Smith, as he guides learners, like me, through the truths encountered in God’s word, especially the tough going in a book like God’s revelation given to the Apostle John.
Today, I was wading through the early part of John’s vision; and he writes about the opening of those seven seals by the Lamb of God (i.e., Jesus) at God’s throne; and the opening of each of the first six is accompanied by incredible visions of heavenly activity or loud (and I mean REALLY LOUD) declarations or songs of praise by the angels, the Elders, and the saints in heaven.
But then, just before the opening of the seventh – and last – seal there was opened, there was silence, specifically documented, for whatever reason, as “a half-hour” of quietude. What’s that all about?
Well, Dr. Smith helps his readers, in his devotional for today, to remember some common phrases in our language, phrases such as “the calm before the storm” or “the eye of the storm,” which are word pictures depicting a calm of anticipation which occurs before some cataclysmic occurrence, when “all hell breaks loose.”
My mind has a bit of trouble grasping the enormity of the vision God gave to John about this heavenly scene just before God’s storm of wrath and judgment was about to come down to crush and punish evil in the world. Reading on in Rev. 8 for tomorrow, I’ll be reading about the trumpet judgments which followed the opening of the seven seals. But just before the seventh seal is opened, signaling “peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake, “ there is this pregnant pause of silence for a half hour.
And to my very limited mind, this is like one of those pauses in many of the psalms, called a “selah,” which as best I’ve been able to determine means to pause and reflect upon the significance or meaning of something before and something to come. So, in the psalms, we read “selah” pronounced after a stanza or passage, which apparently is a pause in the song so that the hearer can reflect upon what they’ve heard and anticipate what is about to be sung.
And that is apparently what happened in John’s vision of heaven when, just before the opening of the seventh seal and the unfolding of God’s wrath against sin and evil in the world, all of heaven paused in silence to reflect on what had happened to bring the world to that point and to take a brief and quiet breath, in the “eye of the storm,” before the storm of God’s wrath was signaled by the trumpets to come.
My friends, Dr. Smith, as he does daily in his devotions asks a momentous question today, which is, ”If God announces His coming with silence as well as sound, does the silence I experience lead to an awful dread or glorious anticipation?”
Only you can answer that FOR YOU; but for me, at this time in my life, which is a pregnant pause of relative quiet, my “selah” signals great anticipation of whatever God will bring for me; because as I’m in this “selah” in my life, I look to that time when I will be with Jesus; and because He has covered my eternal time with His blood, I will see Him face-to-face, working in His presence and worshipping Him for eternity.
Oh how beautiful is the silence of this moment.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, thank You for this time of quiet, … this eye in the storms of my life. Amen
My Journal for Today: Reading Revelations can be revealing, to say the least. But sometimes the figurative language is perplexing; and I require help, like that of my devotional “shepherd” this year, Dr. LaGard Smith, as he guides learners, like me, through the truths encountered in God’s word, especially the tough going in a book like God’s revelation given to the Apostle John.
Today, I was wading through the early part of John’s vision; and he writes about the opening of those seven seals by the Lamb of God (i.e., Jesus) at God’s throne; and the opening of each of the first six is accompanied by incredible visions of heavenly activity or loud (and I mean REALLY LOUD) declarations or songs of praise by the angels, the Elders, and the saints in heaven.
But then, just before the opening of the seventh – and last – seal there was opened, there was silence, specifically documented, for whatever reason, as “a half-hour” of quietude. What’s that all about?
Well, Dr. Smith helps his readers, in his devotional for today, to remember some common phrases in our language, phrases such as “the calm before the storm” or “the eye of the storm,” which are word pictures depicting a calm of anticipation which occurs before some cataclysmic occurrence, when “all hell breaks loose.”
My mind has a bit of trouble grasping the enormity of the vision God gave to John about this heavenly scene just before God’s storm of wrath and judgment was about to come down to crush and punish evil in the world. Reading on in Rev. 8 for tomorrow, I’ll be reading about the trumpet judgments which followed the opening of the seven seals. But just before the seventh seal is opened, signaling “peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake, “ there is this pregnant pause of silence for a half hour.
And to my very limited mind, this is like one of those pauses in many of the psalms, called a “selah,” which as best I’ve been able to determine means to pause and reflect upon the significance or meaning of something before and something to come. So, in the psalms, we read “selah” pronounced after a stanza or passage, which apparently is a pause in the song so that the hearer can reflect upon what they’ve heard and anticipate what is about to be sung.
And that is apparently what happened in John’s vision of heaven when, just before the opening of the seventh seal and the unfolding of God’s wrath against sin and evil in the world, all of heaven paused in silence to reflect on what had happened to bring the world to that point and to take a brief and quiet breath, in the “eye of the storm,” before the storm of God’s wrath was signaled by the trumpets to come.
My friends, Dr. Smith, as he does daily in his devotions asks a momentous question today, which is, ”If God announces His coming with silence as well as sound, does the silence I experience lead to an awful dread or glorious anticipation?”
Only you can answer that FOR YOU; but for me, at this time in my life, which is a pregnant pause of relative quiet, my “selah” signals great anticipation of whatever God will bring for me; because as I’m in this “selah” in my life, I look to that time when I will be with Jesus; and because He has covered my eternal time with His blood, I will see Him face-to-face, working in His presence and worshipping Him for eternity.
Oh how beautiful is the silence of this moment.
My Prayer for Today: Lord, thank You for this time of quiet, … this eye in the storms of my life. Amen
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