Category Archives: Glory

Inaccessible light

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Let all that I am praise the Lord.

O Lord my God, how great you are!

You are robed with honour and majesty. You are dressed in a robe of light.

You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens; you lay out the rafters of your home in the rain clouds.

You make the clouds your chariot; you ride upon the wings of the wind. The winds are your messengers; flames of fire are your servants.

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath!

May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

(Ps 104 1-4,33&34)

Dressed in a robe of light…What an amazing picture, and one which takes me straight to the opening lines of Walter C Smith’s wonderful hymn with which I grew up –

Immortal, Invisible, God only wise; In light inaccesible, hid from our eyes…. 

We live as created beings with a great hunger in our hearts for something or someone greater than ourselves, something eternal from which we can find meaning in the world and on which we can build with what we have. The bible reflects this hunger in the book of Ecclesiastes, where the writer speaks of how he pursued every imaginable source of satisfaction in life, in vain. All was ultimately meaningless and unable to quench the hunger in his heart.

Through the great narrative of the bible stories, we see God revealing himself as the only true satisfaction for humankind, and declaring over and over his deep desire to dwell with us, his people. Our creator knows how we are made, knows that only in relationship with him can we be at peace and fully alive. And yet surely it is also true that we can never really know him. By definition, our God is so much greater than we can even begin to imagine. If we could understand everything about God, then we would be the creators, not he. We hunger to know him more, to discover more of his character, and yet find ourselves unable to stretch our minds enough to cope!

So we have to live with this tension and not allow it to undermine our faith in God’s love, goodness, holiness and faithfulness to us.

We cannot see him clearly; he is indeed wrapped in light, as in a garment. We are dazzled and blinded and unable to see past the glory of his holiness and purity, our minds cannot comprehend his greatness – one who by his word called into being billions of stars, and set in motion forces which we are only beginning to guess at, creating the conditions for life to exist and flourish on this single tiny planet of one star.

How wonderful to find that God, in his compassion for our limitations, came in person, came as one of us, so that we might see and hear him, learn to know him as a man, so that our confidence in him as God might be strengthened. Jesus tells his disciples that since they have seen him, they have seen their heavenly Father, they can know what he is like. So much remains a mystery to us, so many questions arising from our sin-sick world and all the suffering which has scarred God’s beautiful handiwork. What do we do with those unanswerable questions? What did Job do with his? He brought them to God, and was answered – not with a detailed list of explanations, but with a fresh vision of God’s greatness, a reminder that he is ultimately beyond our understanding and utterly good and holy.

Then Job replied to the Lord:”I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked,’who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know..” (Job 42.1-3)

The psalmist contemplates the greatness of God in creation, rejoicing in all he sees and in the knowledge that this same creator God is the one who is his God – the one who has promised to be with us and for us! We have the testimony of creation, but also the Word of God himself, Jesus Christ, revealing God to us and inviting us into that personal, fulfilling relationship which is our true satisfaction.

May our thoughts about God indeed be pleasing to him, as we worship what we can see and know; and accept that the mysteries which remain are good and right, and our God can be trusted. He is hidden in light, not darkness, and worthy of all our praise and honour!

 

There’s no hurry..

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WordPress has deleted the text for today’s blog, my apologies to all who came looking for it. I cannot locate the lost text, and this is just a paraphrase of it! This text from Isaiah was my starting point.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.

He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favour has come, and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.

To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.

In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.

(Isaiah 61.1-3)

Think about it, all of us who are so often aware only of our failure to obey and live lives which glorify God as we desire to do…

Here we are described as ‘like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory!’

I don’t know about you, but I don’t often feel much like a great oak, much more like a weedy sapling, with inadequate roots and little strength to hold up against the storms of life. My leaves are few, and there is little sign of fruit.

But it is in the righteousness we have that we are to be like these great trees – and what is the source of our righteousness? Jesus! It is because we have been healed, forgiven, given a purpose and identity in life by him, that we have any righteousness at all.

We are crowned with the beauty of adoption as God’s children, and clothed with the royal robes of Jesus’ perfection, and because of his obedience and sacrifice for us, we have received all we could possibly need.

It is his life in me which grows strong and tall, producing fruit and withstanding the storms. It is his perfection which is the beauty of the mature believer, and the only reason that our lives glorify God.

And it is for this purpose that we have been ‘planted’ by the Lord – wherever we are – so that Christ in us might shine out in all his loveliness and God be given all the glory for what we have become.

Perhaps I might be allowed to read something else into the picture which is not explicitly there – namely that oak trees take a very long time to mature! Our good and loving God knows that our growth to the beauty of full maturity cannot be rushed, and is patient with us – at times a very unpromising bunch of saplings..

One day, someday dear sisters and brothers, we shall indeed be like great oaks, breathtaking in the grandeur and majesty of their form, strong against every blast, and bearing abundant fruit. And like them, we shall glorify our God in everything we are and do. Until that day, we continue to hold fast to Christ as our righteousness, our hope, our very life, so that He might shape nurture us. To him be the glory, and praise, from even the spindliest of his plantings!

Good news from beyond…

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For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.

But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15. 56&57)

Were the hosts of heaven holding their breath? The son of God has put himself forward as the chosen champion; the one who will dare all against an implacable foe for the sake of an otherwise hopeless cause – a humanity under God’s judgement.

As the sky darkened that Sabbath eve, it was as if a curtain was being drawn between the watching eyes and the two protagonists. The final glimpse of Christ our elect warrior, is as he breathes his last, and enters the theatre of death for us. Then the stage appears to fall silent and empty, and we know no more.

All seemed lost as the sun set that night. All the long hours of Saturday, the bewildered disciples hid, nursing their grief and loss, profoundly confused and stunned by what they had experienced. How they must have been tormented by the memory of their failure to stand by him at his trial, by the soul-searing knowledge of their own weakness and all the appalling “If only..” thoughts which haunt those prematurely bereaved. Did they recall anything of what Jesus had taught them on the road to Jerusalem a few weeks earlier? Did his words return with the weight of fulfilled prophecy behind them? He had told them that he would be handed over to suffer and die.

Did they remember the other thing he had told them would happen…. that after three days, he would rise again? What did they make of those words during the long hours after his body had been taken to the tomb, as time crawled by and all the savour and vigour drained from life ?

And then, in the early light of Sunday, the women came tearing from the tomb, gasping out that the body was gone, and an angel had told them the Christ was risen! Did they dismiss it as feminine hysteria, grief-deluded wishful thinking? Or did Jesus’ friends finally begin to realise that – along with everything else he had told them – this was also true?

Surely, heaven must have exploded with the song of triumph as the son of God surged forth, presenting himself before the Father to receive the victor’s crown. This was what had been planned for, agonised for, laboured for – the great divine conspiracy to deliver captive humanity from the slavery of sin and death. And now, it had been fully achieved, as Paul tells us :- “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again, death no longer has mastery over him.” (Romans 6.9)

In his great love for us, God did not leave us in any doubt about the nature of that victory, so that the word which came to the women, to the disciples, and above all the absence of the dead body of the Lord all proclaimed the victory won. The warrior had conquered, succeeding in his battle beyond all that they had dreamt – not a small political triumph over an occupying power, but an eternal, universal defeat of the power of evil to cut humanity off from God.

We shall never know what our champion faced for us, what agonies he claimed the privilege of bearing for our sake. We can only wonder at his courage and worship him for the love which drove him. He fought the fight for us. He gives us the prize, his victory is ours. And as we see his transformed, resurrected body, we get a glimpse of the incredible future in store for all of us who believe.

This too is for us, this new life beyond the grave. How bright is the light that shines on us on Easter Sunday morning; what glad tidings we hear, of the death of the power of sin in our lives. The past has no power over us now. The victory of our champion sets us free to live in bright hope, with steady courage and a confident step. God grant that we may indeed live in that victory!

No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from his hand:

Till he returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

(Stuart Townend & Keth Getty, 2001)

The foundation of obedience..

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Take off take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy..

(Joshua 5.15)

So Joshua has successfully led the wandering people of God’s promise into the land where they are to settle. He has seen the floods of the Jordan back up to create a dry pathway for their feet, and heard the thunder of returning waters after the last foot left the river bank. He knows from his spies that the people who live in the land – even in the great fortified cities like Jericho – are terrified at the coming of this bunch of nomads, because of the reputation of the God who goes with them.

He could be forgiven for becoming a little presumptuous about the next steps, for assuming that he just had to walk up and challenge the gates of Jericho, to see everyone flee in terror. But it seems he was not – one of the things I love about the stories of Joshua, are the way they reveal an utterly humble and faithful servant heart, I look forward to meeting this hero of God’s story in heaven and hearing all about it!

Joshua went wandering, prowling around the hills near the city, perhaps debating in his mind how God would want him to proceed. He is answered, in a heart-stopping encounter with an armed stranger, who is revealed to be neither an enemy, nor a member of his own army! This is the true commander, come to remind Joshua that God is God, and owes alliegance to no man. It is the work of God which will open the land to his people, not the strength of Joshua’s strategies or soldiers. The question is, where does Joshua’s alliegance lie? Has he become proud – as Saul would later in Israel’s history – and unwilling to wait on God’s leading?

There is no question in Joshua’s mind, as he drops to the ground in reverence, and identifies the stranger as ‘my Lord’, asking what the instructions might be. We should be cheering this faithful servant, rejoicing that God has answered him so directly and convincingly! But we can also learn from him, and the way that God dealt with Joshua – as he dealt also with Moses all those years before in the desert encounter with a burning bush.

Our God is a holy God – that means that anything impure is utterly abhorrent to him and it cannot abide in his sight, but will be consumed as if by fire. Joshua, this mere man, a creature of flesh and weakness even as we are, knew that to be on holy ground was a terrifying thing, fraught with danger. He surely knew as the writer to the Hebrews would later put it that ‘It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.‘(Heb 10.31)

We shrink from the idea of a God who should be feared, preferring to dwell on the wonderful love which is revealed through Christ’s life and death for us. And it is good so to dwell. But the same holy and righteous God is active in the life of Christ. We see him condemning those who reject his kingdom, assuring all who listen that those who continue to shut their ears to God will suffer and know his wrath. This is not easy reading, it should frighten us! Our God is above all one who must be taken seriously – both in his love for us, and also his power and holiness.  Do we? Do I sometimes sit far too casually with my familiar sins, instead of seeing them as my living God does – as the appalling and deadly thing they are? Does my obedience and desire for growing holiness of life really spring from a growing awe at the God who has called me to be His own?

I believe that Joshua served God gladly, with joy and even pride in what God had called him to do. But there was a right spirit about his service that I desire for myself – a spirit of prostrate worship before an utterly holy God; to whom nothing but perfect obedience should be given, because nothing less could be an acceptable expression of his love and devotion.

May God grant us each an ever deepening grasp of his beautiful, terrible holiness, blindingly bright, and irresistibly lovely, so that we might worship and serve Him worthily, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Glory and grace…

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Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name; worship the Lord in the splendour of his holiness.

The voice of the Lord is over the water; the God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters….

The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord is enthroned as King for ever. The Lord gives strength to his people; the Lord blesses his people with peace.

(Ps 29. 1-3, 9-11)

I love feeling small, being dwarfed by beauty, might and power. This may be because I have never been at the mercy of nature as many of our race have – whether hurricane and typhoon, or flood or earthquake. I am awed and inspired by the beauty and power which God has released into creation – through all the laws which govern the air, earth and water. Do we sometimes forget to be in awe of these elements? It is good to remind ourselves that we are not as powerful as we might like, that ultimately we cannot control what happens, and that if we trust in our own strength, we will surely be disappointed.

Either through natural disasters, or man-made destruction, all the things which our race depend upon for life can be taken away. If our security and contentment are founded in those things, then we are looking in the wrong place for our peace of mind and hope for the future. But these great forces in themselves are not ultimately in control either!

This psalm positively reverberates with the sound of God’s voice: its power is proclaimed and celebrated in the most forceful ways to drive home the point that the greatest of natural forces is as nothing beside the Lord, and that He alone is worthy of our worship.

The word “Ascribe” in the psalm can also be translated as “Honour”, in other words we should give full praise to God as his right for his power and holiness. We do not in any way add to God’s greatness by our worship, but do we perhaps rob him in a way when we fail to recognise and exalt it?

Everything in creation apart from humanity brings glory to God simply by being, by fulfilling the purpose for which He created it – manifesting His imaginative power, His creativity and strength, His unfathomable command of physical laws which enabled the creation of universes beyond our comprehension. The flight of the tiniest birds; the obedience of the oceans to the forces which govern their movement; the infinitesimal growth of great trees over hundreds of years; and the haunting beauty of the Aurora Borealis, all bear witness to their creator’s greatness and glory.

And I? I struggle and pout and fret about getting things my way; I complain when life does not give me the opportunities I desire – for myself or my loved ones. I worry about the future instead of celebrating the present, and accepting that my maker in His wisdom and goodness knows what is best for me. This is our shame as a race, that we refuse to give God the glory which is due to his name, and instead set ourselves up as worthy of honour and all the effort and focus of our lives.

This is the miracle which time and again fills me with wonder and thankfulness, that this God, this Creator, whose glory fills the heavens and stuns me into silence, is the same God who knows and loves me personally. Through faith in Jesus Christ, my rebellion is forgiven and I am transformed into one who seeks to exalt and honour God as she ought – feeble though the effort may be at times… And through Christ, I know the tender and intimate love of God, the promise of a new start in this life, and eternal life to come. This is all grace, all the goodness of God poured out on the undeserving rebel to give her a second chance and set  her free from worshipping herself. I am never so full of life and joy as when I am abandoned in praise of my adorable Saviour; my tender Father; and my strong and powerful Counsellor. I am nothing, God is all!

These words from the great hymn by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) put it so much more briefly and beautifully – may we all receive grace this week to glorify our God as He deserves.

Lord of all being, throned afar, Thy glory flames from sun and star;

Centre and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near.

Lord of all life, below, above, Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love;

Before thy ever-blazing throne, We ask no lustre of our own.