The Beauty of the Lord

What is beautiful to you? My eldest daughter had her 22nd birthday last week and that caused me to think back on the day she was born. (of course!) I remember holding her in the hospital and thinking about how perfect she was to me, not unlike all of you in the same situation. I have a picture of her being held by her dad, and I can see the awe in his eyes as he cradled his newborn baby girl. How beautiful! Now as she turns 22 and is still as beautiful to me as she was then, I am reminded of how life is fleeting, because her birth seems like yesterday to me. What about beauty though? In Psalms 27:4 David speaks of wanting to gaze upon the beauty of God. "One thing I have desired of the LORD, that I will seek; That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple." Did you ever think about God being beautiful? I haven't , though it would make sense, we can look around us in nature and every human being and all our diversity and the beauty of it all. How awesome is this God that we serve and how absolutely beautiful is He?! God is as much beautiful as He is majestic and powerful! Yet we don't meditate on the beauty of the Lord. As we continue the journey learning more of Him everyday, as we consider His attributes and praise Him for them all, lets stand and gaze into the beauty of the Lord our God! Think about it.

Faith=Confidence

Hebrew 11:1-2 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony" The picture that I think I have had of faith in my mind and my heart is sort of mystical, you know something that you can't really understand, but you know that it is an important part of your walk. I think this illustration used in "In Search of a Confident Faith" says it better. The author speaks of a young girl who asked of him one time, "If you can prove that God is real what would be the purpose of faith?" This really is the way I have looked at faith, just something to fill in the gap to that which is unknown. When we understand faith as being a confidence in God (which is a literal meaning) it shines like a beacon on scripture and on how important it is to know intimately our Heavenly Father. When I read chapter 11 of Hebrews, which is familiar to most believers and I put in the phrase "God confidence" where the word faith is it was like that beacon shining through to my heart! How did these ordinary people, unexpected people do such extraordinary things? God confidence! Faith! Their faith was counted to them righteousness! We know that our righteousness is counted to us on behalf of our Savior, it is my confidence in God, not myself or the things I have done, or the things I will do that make me righteous before Him, but because I have confidence in the Father's work of salvation on my behalf through Jesus Christ! Wow! Rejoice in that today and tomorrow and the next day! What freedom comes to my heart when I understand and you understand that it is not faith just for faith sake, but a deep rooted confidence in an Almighty, Sovereign Father that leads us through this life and into the one to come. Can you say Hallelujah? Think about it!

His reality or mine?

Reading in a devotional the other day I was reminded of a movie that I have seen called "The Truman Show", maybe you've seen it. In the movie Jim Carrey plays Truman who lives a life that many would love to live, seemingly perfect but in reality not reality at all. You see Truman IS a reality show and doesn't even know it. All the people in his life are just actors playing a part. In the devotional the author ask the question of truth and reality, what is it? Truman at a point in the movie begins to see something is wrong, his reality is falling apart. He tries to escape one day by getting in a sailboat and sailing away when he runs into the end of the set that his life is lived on; his reality just ran out! That hit me like a rock because not too long ago my reality, the life that I had constructed slowly began to fade and ended one day. It wasn't the death of someone dear, not even the suffering that many go through with physical issues, but it was the death of my carefully designed life that I loved. I loved everything about it, and then it was taken away and I caved! I was so mad at God, I even audibly said, "if You are really even there appear to me right now tell me what I am suppose to do!" You might think how brazen that was and really it was, but at that moment God began something new in my heart and looking back, it had to hit the wall before freedom could come. Where did my freedom lay, in Christ, in who I am in Christ, in who He is in me! My identity was not in the things that I loved, for they are temporary but in the things unseen, because they are eternal. Read 2 Cor. 4, the whole chapter and that thought of what reality really is culminates in the last verse, "...while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." I have not come to the end of this journey of understanding what God is teaching me about this, but I understand that my reality is not that illusion of what I have created, but is in my Sovereign who reigns over all! Think about it!