Tag Archives: Christian Life

His Marvelous Light

28 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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In my study of Isaiah 45:7, and specifically my study of light, I have had two scriptures running through my head.  The first is James 1:17; “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”  The second is 1 Peter 2:9; “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”. 

The passage from James was foremost in my mind as I was reading about light in Dr. Ben Still’s Mind Maps: Physics and read about atomic spectra: the range of light emitted by atoms.  Dr. Still writes, “Since the mid-nineteenth century, chemists have noticed that atoms did not emit light of all colors, but instead emitted light of just certain wavelengths.”  Dr. Still does go on to describe how Niels Bohr explains the why of this but I remained stuck on the fact that atoms emit light at all.  I look at my body with new eyes and in wonder knowing that, even though I can’t see it, there is a light show going on at the atomic level. 

I know that what is “born of flesh is flesh” and “what is born of spirit is spirit”.  This body was built from the flesh of my parents (and their parents, and their parents…) and so the lights my atoms give off are a biological mechanism and is likely not what James had in mind when he wrote, “Father of lights.”  And yet; I am not separate from my body.  My spirit is knitted to it and, because I am One Spirit with the Lord Jesus Christ, His Spirit is also knitted to it.  My body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and I await the day when this mortality is swallowed up in His immortality and this body is made like His.  Until then, I look at this body with all its imperfections and see it as the dwelling place of God.  The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (John 1:14) and now the living God is perfectly at home living in me.  If that doesn’t wipe out any vestige of feelings of worthlessness, I don’t know what will.

I’ve been thinking about what it means for God to be living inside of us, dwelling in a temple of living stones rather than one made with hands.  There is no denying that while it is the absolute truth that I now am One with God through the unity of the Holy Spirit, this body is still subject to hunger, pain, and death.  There are dimensions to this life in Jesus that are not yet made manifest.  I read the New Testament and find so many scriptures urging me to press in, lay hold of, pursue, run towards the goal, etc.  In his first letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul writes; “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing, which He will manifest in His own time, He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power.  Amen” (1 Timothy 6:12-16).k

There is so much in this passage it deserves a dedicated study of its own.  For the sake of this one, one of the questions I asked myself was, what is this unapproachable light?  I can study the aspects of light in my physics books, see attributes of God, and know that I cannot ever study the creation enough to know God.  The light that He is is uncreated and therefore far above and beyond the electromagnetic spectrum capable of being studied.  This light that God is, called the Shekinah in the Old Testament, could not really be known in those days either.  First, most of the tabernacle was off limits to the people of Israel.  Only the tribe of Levi could minister to the Lord and then the number of people who could enter the different sections got smaller and smaller until only the High Priest could enter beyond the veil into the Shekinah of God and he could only do so once a year.  (I’m simplifying for sake of space. Read Leviticus, especially Chapter 16).  Until Jesus.

The Book of Hebrews describes what Jesus fulfilled-what the tabernacle of old pointed to.  The Book of Hebrews describes Him as our High Priest who offered Himself as sacrifice once and for all, by one offering perfected forever those who are being sanctified and SAT DOWN at the right hand of God.  This is so amazing.  Whereas the high priest of old could only enter the presence of God one day a year and then had to do so year after year after year, Jesus, our best and last High Priest, entered into the presence of God and has never left it.  He abides in that unapproachable light and, just as the high priest of old represented all of Israel as he ministered in the Holy of Holies, so did Jesus represent every one of us.

I was listening to a teaching this week on the Feasts of the Lord and I saw this so clearly: Jesus entering into the Shekinah-that uncreated light of God-once and for all.  I hold this picture in mind as I think on what it means to be “in Christ”.  By offering up Himself, Jesus had made a new and living way through the veil “that is, His flesh.  Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest…” (Hebrews 10:10, 9) He opened the way for everyone. He opened the way for me. It is astonishing to know that even as I sit at my desk I am In Him, that at this moment I am seated with Him in heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6) and as He is so am I in this world” (1 John 4:17). 

He has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.  He is the light of the world, the light shining in the darkness which the darkness cannot put out.  Because we are as He is, so are we the light of the world.  Because we are in Him and Him in us, we too dwell in the unapproachable light, the secret place of the Most High, the very life and light and heart of The Father.  This is our present reality because His Spirit lives in us. Jesus Himself is the treasure we have in earthen vessels, the eternal life we lay hold of.  We await the transforming of our mortal bodies to be like His glorious body but that waiting does not change the truth that now, at this moment, we live and move and have our being in the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of life.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Still, Dr. Ben, Mind Maps Physics: How to Navigate the World of Science, 1st Edition, Unipress Books Limited, 2020, Page 98

The Feasts of the Lord

The Nature of Light

21 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Studies

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I’m not sure how I took this-my hands might have been shaking-but I thought it was cool.

I am continuing in my study of Isaiah 45:7, specifically the study of light.  The Hebrew word for light in my passage is owr (H216) and has a fairly basic definition: illumination, luminary (in every sense including lightening, happiness, etc.), bright, clear, day + light (ening), morning, sun.  The Hebrew word translated light in my passage is the same word translated light in Genesis 1:3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light’”.  I was curious to see if I could learn anything from this but, as I went through other scriptures where owr is used, I wasn’t getting any light on the matter (ha ha).

In the Genesis Account, plants are created before the sun, moon, and stars.  The Word of God declares, “…let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night: and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth” (Genesis 1:14-15).  The light of Genesis 1:3 cannot be sunlight and I was curious what my science books had to say on the subject.

In John Wiester’s book The Genesis Connection, he writes, “The Universe began at a sharply defined instant in time in a fiery explosion of intense brilliance.  In the beginning, pure energy was transforming itself into matter.  One of the greatest contributions of nineteenth-century physics was the statement of the law of conservation of energy.  In essence this law says that energy can change form, but it is never destroyed.  Thus in the Big Bang, pure energy would alter itself into forms of matter about which we can only theorize.  The first particles to emerge were photons (particles of light) and neutrinos (subatomic particles that travel through solid bodies at the speed of light).  These were almost instantaneously followed by electrons, positrons, protons, and neutrons.  Initial temperatures were beyond comprehension, such as one hundred thousand million degrees.  The Universe was filled with light.” 

I found a similar quote in Mind Maps: Physics by Dr. Ben Still: “It is thought our universe started with a Big Bang.  Before this event, there was nothing, including no space for things to move in, or time to grow old by.  At some point, some quantum fluctuation triggered energy, space, and time to be unleashed.  In the first moments, the universe expanded outward into the nothing faster than the speed of light, a tiny period of time known as inflation.  Space and time unfurled like a carpet as the universe doubled in size many times over until it reached about the size of a golf ball.  This young universe, much less than one second old, was very hot, as huge amounts of energy were confined to a very small space.  In the moments that followed, energy was converted into different forms, including the mass of many fundamental particles.  Strong interactions almost immediately bound quarks into baryons and mesons, while electrons and other leptons stood by as spectators.  At just minutes old, the universe was a plasma of electrically charged particles, each sharing energy through the exchange of light.”

Both of these quotes paint fascinating mental pictures for me.  That beginning must have been glorious and beautiful beyond explanation.  I am awed at the thought but don’t feel I am gaining any insight into what light actually is.  I continued to peruse both books and in Dr. Ben Still’s book, found a section titled “The Strange Behavior of Light.”  In Mr. Wiester’s book, I found: “Light is the key to all life in this world.  It is the form of energy that is necessary for all life on Earth.  It is an imperfectly understood gift that behaves as both a wave and a particle to provide the energy upon which all life ultimately depends.”

In reading both books, I got the sense that scientists don’t fully understand light and my attention was captured by Mr. Wiester’s words, “imperfectly understood.”  I was reminded of 1 John 1:5 which says, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”  Like the created light that, while studied and knowledge is growing all the time remains imperfectly understood, so does the God who is light remain imperfectly understood.  Or, He would if He had not chosen to reveal Himself to us.  All through the Old Testament we have God revealing Himself but this revelation is piecemeal.  No one person had a complete picture.  There are promises like this one in Isaiah: “The Sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you; But the Lord will be to you an everlasting light, and your God your glory” (60:19).  And then, in the fullness if time, every promise was fulfilled.

The Word became flesh and, in Jesus, we see the final, full, and complete revelation of God.  John’s Gospel says,”No one has seen God at any time.  The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (John 1:18).  Light can now be perfectly understood. 

My study has only touched on the darkness mentioned in Isaiah 45:7 as I have looked up scriptures and seen darkness and light mentioned together.  I have not looked at all at the word “evil” in the passage and I am interested to see where the study goes as I look at the words that carry a negative connotation.  What I can say for certain at this point is that I have often quoted scriptures like, “…that in all things He might have preeminence” (Colossians 1:18) and “God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9) without fully understanding what they mean.  As I study, I am convinced that Jesus is everything.

Jesus Christ is Lord.  Jesus Christ is my Salvation, my Peace, my Rest, my Inheritance, my Promised Land, my Health, my Mind, my Source, my Very Life.  In Jesus is Life.  That life was, is now, and always shall be the light of all mankind.  In Him all the promises of God are Yes!  This day we declare; “Arise!  Shine!  For our light has come!  And the glory of the Lord is risen upon us!” (Isaiah 60:1).

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all scriptures are quoted from The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

Still, Dr. Ben, Mind Maps Physics: How to Navigate the World of Science, 1st Edition, Unipress Books Limited, 2020

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Wiester, John, The Genesis Connection, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1983

Interlude

07 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by in Poetry, Writing

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Photo by Walter Strong
Interlude
I went out walking
Late at night
The moonlight
Was so bright
My shadow walked beside me.
I needed time for thinking
And I sought
A good spot
But I could not
Make out the stars above me.
Too many lights glowing
Mankind's tries
To lighten skies
Blinding my eyes
To the beauty I might see.
It set me wondering
Of thoughts enshrined
By a Darkened Mind
In attempt to find
An image of who we might be.

If You're a sun burning
Living Fire
We can desire
But would expire
If we dared to approach You;
Are we the moon hanging
High overhead
Utterly dead
Our light instead
One that is endued?
Or are we stars shining
Containers of light
Pinpricks in the night
Scattered but bright
Each with our own hue?

I see the day dawning
No more night
To our sight
You the light
The only one we can see.
A glimmer of understanding 
What is true 
Us made anew 
An image of You 
Our light born in unity.

Haste this Day's coming
With all restored
In one accord
And You adored
O, Great Father of lights!


The Questions That Arise

03 Monday Jan 2022

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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Hello, and welcome to the first post of 2022!

My social media feeds have been flooded with messages of good wishes for a new year, suggestions to make intentions rather than resolutions, and encouragements to be more mindful, to name but a few of the types of posts I’ve seen.  I am not one for resolutions myself.  I was recently at a retreat and heard someone say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plan.”  I don’t believe God is the type of being seeking to amuse Himself by throwing a wrench into our best laid plans but neither can I deny there is some truth to that statement.  Proverbs 16:9 says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps” (KJV).  That’s the scripture that keeps coming to mind during this time of resolutions and seeking change and so I do not seek to deviseth my own path, but to be aware of the Lord’s direction and to walk where He would have me go.

This very decision implies relationship.  I cannot walk by the direction of the Lord without being aware of Him: His presence, His thoughts, and His voice.  And, I am.  He is always with me and I seek to always obey His promptings and corrections.  I have to admit I don’t perfectly obey but it’s more of I didn’t recognize a prompting until afterward rather than deliberate disobedience.  Moving into a new year, I ask The Holy Spirit to continue to guide me into greater understanding and discernment.  May I recognize the sound of His voice every moment.

I ask.

I have been thinking about asking questions of God.  I do it all the time.  If The Holy Spirit is my teacher, as the scriptures say He is, how do I learn except I ask questions?  I do not know any teachers who do not want their students to ask questions.  Why would we expect The Holy Spirit to be different?  I already shared how I wondered about the Elder Brother in the Prodigal Son story in Luke 15 and how within a few weeks I had Malcolm Smith’s sermons on just that subject.  This has happened many times.  There is so much I don’t understand (Ha! Understatement) and there has never been a time where I have posed a question to The Holy Spirit and he has not answered it.  Sometimes it’s through another teacher, sometimes it’s through the scriptures, sometimes it’s a book placed on the right shelf at the right time…there are many and varied ways in which He answers me and, the more He answers me, the bolder my questions get.

I ask The Holy Spirit, “why?”  Two teachers I have learned a great deal from, two men I admire and respect, have both at various times said “don’t ask God why”.  I understand why they say this.  Consider the mind of God.  If you are a believer in God and believed He created everything that is; then you believe the vastness of creation with its infinite variety, its precision, and its intricacy originated in His mind.  He imagined it and spoke it into being.  How can my finite mind begin to comprehend the infiniteness of God?  It cannot and neither can I ask “why?” because as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than my ways and His thoughts than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9, paraphrased) and I cannot possible comprehend the answer.

And yet-I have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).  The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in me (Romans 8:11).  This same Spirit is the Spirit Jesus promised would guide me into all truth, show me things to come, and take all the things of the Father that were given to Jesus and give them to me (John 16:13-15).  This is massive.  It’s beyond words.  It’s definitely a time to Selah until the reality of it saturates us to our cores.  This is the life that Jesus has made available for us, I boldly ask Him “why?” and I trust He will answer me.

I do believe the way of asking is important.  I do not demand to know “why?” like I am putting God on trial and expect Him to defend Himself to me.  I do not spit my “whys” at Him and use them as an excuse to go my own way.  I ask as His child and I ask within the parameters of that relationship. 

I’m sure all of you who are parents have experienced your child asking “why?”  You do not shut down that precious curiosity nor do you ignore a question that has been asked in pain.  I do not believe our Heavenly Father does so either.  But then, neither does a loving and concerned parent force information on a child who is too young and inexperienced to understand.  Sometimes answers to a child’s “why’s” are only partial answers and sometimes they can only be answered with, “I cannot tell you that yet: you are not yet old enough to understand.”

There have been many times where that is the answer I have received and it is an answer I am okay with.  When I receive that particular answer, I expect something to happen.  I don’t expect anything specific but I know that an opportunity will come where I can learn something.  Sometimes I recognize the opportunity as part of the answer to the question I have asked.  Other times, it’s an answer to something I didn’t think to ask.  Whatever happens, I know that I can trust my Father is not mad at me for asking and will, in His perfect wisdom and timing, give me the answer I desire.

To those of you who have stuck with me over the last year, thank you for reading!  I don’t expect the content of the posts to change much in the upcoming year.  I do hope each post will reflect growth in understanding, discernment, obedience, and delight in this life I live in Jesus Christ.  My prayer for myself and each one of you in this new year is that Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation will expand our knowledge of Jesus Christ, that the eyes of our hearts will be shed with light that we may come to fully know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us, and that we would know the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!  Amen.

Entering His Rest

15 Monday Nov 2021

Posted by in Walking in the Way

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I’ve been studying The Epistle to the Hebrews using, among other references, Andrew Murray’s “Holiest of All: A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews”.  I quoted from it last week and have decided to do so again this week.  I have not moved much beyond Chapter Thirty-One which is entitled “Rest from Works”.  I understand the truth of “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20) but living this truth out in my day to day life is a challenge. It is I who gets up every morning, gets ready, and then goes to work.  I am the one people are interacting with every day.  I hold on to that awareness of Christ in me but it is I who gets tired, it is I whose feelings get hurt, and it is I who is tempted to lose her temper.  I am diligent to enter into His rest and do not want to fail to do so through disobedience (Hebrews 4:11), but how do I do it?  What does it look like?

In order to enter His rest I must first see it and the only way to see it is to have the Holy Spirit open my eyes and to show me, as Andrew Murray says; “Jesus as our Joshua, who has entered into God’s presence, who sits upon the throne as High Priest, bringing us in living union with Himself into that place of rest and of love and, by His Spirit within us, making that life of heaven a reality and an experience”.  At the end of Chapter Thirty-Two which is Andrew Murray’s exposition on Hebrews 4:11, he says; “Jesus said, ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls’ (Matthew 11:29).  It was through meekness and lowliness of heart that Jesus found His rest in God.  He allowed God to be all, trusted God for all-the rest of God was His abode.  He invites us to share HIs rest and tells us the secret.  In the meekness and lowliness of Jesus is the way to rest.”

I understand.  I fix my eyes on Jesus.  I take His yoke and am lead by Him.  I learn of Him.  I know this to be true but neither can I deny I don’t always manage to perfectly live my life out of His.  Learning of Him is a process.  I have heard many teachers speak of this life in Jesus as a process but don’t think anyone described it as well as Andrew Murray.  In his chapter notes at the end of Chapter Thirty-One, he says; “’Not I, but Christ” (Galatians 2:20 KJV).  This is the rest of faith in which a man rests from his works.  With the unconverted man it is “Not Christ, but I.”  With the feeble and slothful Christian, “I and Christ: I first, and Christ to fill up what is wanting.”  With increasing earnestness it becomes, “Christ and I: Christ first, but I still second.”  With the man who dies with Christ it is, “Not I, but Christ:’ Christ alone and Christ all.”  He has ceased from his work: Christ lives in Him.  This is the rest of faith.”  This description arrested me and I’ve spent a couple of weeks now pondering it.

I can’t remember ever being unconverted and being in the “Not Christ, but I” mindset. My family moved a lot and church attendance was sporadic but my Mom made sure I was taught of the Lord. In terms of works, there are times I have acted selfishly and have been rebellious but I don’t remember ever thinking I could do whatever I liked because there was no God.

I spent way too much time in the “I and Christ: I first, and Christ to fill up what is wanting” mindset.  I thought it was right. As I got older, life got more structured, and I started regularly attending church, I was taught this was how the Christian life worked. The Bible laid out what my works were to be, I did them, and Jesus would bolster me when my strength failed. There were so many times when I “stepped out in faith” believing for my healing and every time I crashed and burned.  This, of course, meant I was double minded, had doubted, and thus Jesus couldn’t heal me.  My failure was proof I didn’t have enough faith because; couldn’t I do all things through Christ who strengthened me?  If He wasn’t strengthening me, then I had failed somewhere.  I knew of no alternative though because “faith without works is dead” (James 2:17) so I had to keep on. 

I find a perfect description of how I felt in Andrew Murray’s book.  Speaking of Christians, he says: “Their life is one of earnest effort and ceaseless struggling.  They long to do God’s will and to live to His glory.  Continued failure and bitter disappointment is their too frequent experience.  Very often, as the result, they give themselves up to a feeling of hopelessness: ‘It will never be otherwise.’  Theirs is truly the wilderness life-they have not entered into God’s rest.”

What a joy to see that it is not “I and Christ” and “Christ to fill up what is wanting”!  How I rejoice that He has shown me that I live by His life, His faith, His guidance, His strength.  I enter His rest and it is made a reality within me by His Spirit.  Since I know this is my reality, I had difficulty understanding what Andrew Murray meant by “Christ and I: Christ first, but I still second.”  Surely not.  I had ceased from my works and was utterly submitted to Christ.  I was already living in the “Not I but Christ” mindset, wasn’t I?  Yes and no.  I got to thinking of some recent experiences and, in remembering them, I think I have come to an understanding of what Andrew Murray means by “Christ and I: Christ first, but I second.”

While I would like my circumstances to be different, I cannot be sorry for them.  They have been the vehicle through which God has revealed Himself to me.  When He is ready, He will change them and, until then, so be it: I am submitted to the Spirit of God living within me.  I do that which He has put in my hands to do and serve those He has put in my life to serve.  Then there comes the moment when the person I’m delighting to serve overlooks the hundred things I have done and comes up with a hundred and first that I have not.  They are a little disappointed-not much, mind you-but still disappointed that I didn’t even think of the one thing that was most important to them which I ought to have done if I really cared about them.  They are disappointed and maybe a little hurt. 

Here is where I feel the “Christ first, but I second”.  Having just been blindsided, I am angry.  All the past hurts and put downs I’ve let go come rushing back.  The moment I can get by myself, I lay it all before God.  Does He hear how this person talks to me?  Does He see how I am treated?  I do not serve to be thanked-I do all things as unto the Lord-but neither has He called me to be a doormat.  When is it time to shake the dust off my feet and move on to better things?  I am submitted to Him.  I listen for His voice and strive to obey in all things, but don’t my feelings matter?  Christ first, but I second?

No.  Not I at all but Christ and He alone.  My feelings do matter and because I know He loves me and they matter, I can take my hurt and seething rage and pour it out to Him.  He listens, He soothes, and then He invites me to enter into His thoughts and feelings.  He shows me the situation from His perspective where I matter so much He gave His life for me just as He gave His life for the person who has wronged me.

I know who I am in Christ.  I know what I am worth because of what Jesus has done.  No one can affect this truth.  There are many who don’t know and I am to live the reality of “Not I but Christ” every moment, no matter what.  I am to see that what He did for me, He did for everyone else.  He loves the person who has hurt me just as much as He loves me.  I choose not to allow my Self to rule.  I remember that I am not only crucified with Christ but risen with Him.  Everything He has He gives to me.  My life is hid in His.  It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.  I exchange the wilderness life of my own works for the rest life in which God does His perfect work.  Jesus came to give it.  His rest is mine.

All scripture quotes are from:

The New King James Version of The Holy Bible, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

All Andrew Murray quotes are from:

Murray, Andrew, Holiest of All: A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews, Whitaker House, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, 1996, 2004, Chapters Thirty-One and Thirty-Two, Pages 163-170