Good News about God: The Lord is My Light (Part 2)

I'm following up on last week's posting on the good news about God being Light and that we cannot truly live without experiencing the light of His countenance/face shining on us always.

I'd like to approach this with different language to help with understanding how critical it is that we experience the light that comes from His shining countenance, His smile.

In the maturing process of humans, the foundation necessary for developing into healthy adulthood is laid in the early days and months and years of the child. What the infant looks for immediately is the mother's smiling face and loving touch. The smile of absolute acceptance and approval along with her loving touch tells the infant the he is unconditionally loved without having done anything to earn that; he is loved and accepted purely for the fact that he is her child. The father's loving voice affirms this reality.

If the infant does not experience the smile and brightness that comes from the adoring eyes of the mother in his early development, he grows up striving to earn the love and approval of his parents, and as an adult, his life is driven by the need to perform in hopes of being accepted by others. The unconditional acceptance that comes through the eyes of a good mother roots him in love so that his life work assignment is an expression of the unearned acceptance that he has freely received.

The same is true of our life in God; if the foundation that is laid for the "infant believer" is mainly about what he can accomplish for God, then he carries a mindset of religion that demands all kinds of compliance to this rule or to that system in order to be accepted. Many believers live our life in God striving to get approval by conforming to what we believe is expected of us because of our lack of living understanding of the unconditional acceptance of God in Christ Jesus.

Much Christian service is about this desperate need for approval and for proving our worth to others and to God. We need to experience the heavenly Father's light-filled countenance shining on us in order to be freed from dead works. And for that, we must understand that God is light and there is not even a shadow of changeableness or fickleness about Him (James 1:17); the light that shines from His countenance isn't sometimes light and sometimes dark, depending on His mood. When He looks at me, His favor shines on me, not because I have earned it but because I am His child by virtue of the blood of my Elder Brother Jesus.

I encourage you to take a few moments and imagine what kind of look you think the heavenly Father has on His face when He looks at you, especially when you feel you've really messed up. Is it one of disappointment, disapproval, disgust, impatience, anger, belittlement...? His face is full of light in which is no darkness at all. He won't approve of some of my behavior and attitudes, and He will correct that but never in a way that reflects anything but affection and acceptance of me as a person for whom He has deep affection and liking.

I need to walk in His unconditional acceptance of me every day in order to live free from dead works, and so it's good news about God that He is all light; I can look up into His face and know that what I will encounter in that look is light and life, and I am empowered by His approving smile to serve Him and others without a slave mentality, and I am also empowered to receive His correction in a life-giving way.

Again here are some Scriptures from last week that you can meditate on related to this: James 1:17; Numbers 6:25; Psalm 27:1; 139:11,12; Isaiah 60:20; Daniel 2:22; Micah 7:8; John 1:4,5; 8:12; I Timothy 6:15,16; I John 1:5.

Good News about God: The Lord is My Light

Oswald Chambers: "When we preach we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God."

Good news about God: The Lord is my Light. (Psalm 27:1; John 1:4,5; I John 1:5)

Light is a big topic, so I'm going to approach this reality about God by simply saying that without light, there is no life. Instead, the fear of death reigns with all of its manifestations, such as fear of man, fear of loss, fear of failure, etc.

This truth about God is great news and tells us something about His nature that is important for us to grasp by the Spirit in order to see Him rightly. The news that God is Light speaks clearly to us that He is the Source of all life. There is no trace of death and darkness in Him; death is the ultimate enemy. Jesus said of Himself in the Gospel of John that He is the Light and the Life, and it is His light and life that has overcome death and darkness.

It's important to grasp this truth about God because in order to experience the dispelling of the darkness/confusion of death's impact on our hearts and minds, we must tie the soul's anchor to the reality that because God is light, His countenance is full of light, and it is through looking into His countenance (face) that life and light are imparted to us.

If I am to live in this age without the darkness and confusion of the fear of death in all its forms, I must have the light of His countenance (His smile) shining on me! Because He is all Light and Life, I can have the assurance that His countenance is filled with light towards me and that there is no shadow over His face related to me. If my picture of Him when He looks at me is one of a scowl (darkness) on His face, I will not "flower" into who I truly am in Him but will want to hide from Him. In my moments of failure is when I most need to know that His face is full of light towards me, because it's that which will motivate me to cling to Him and thereby find light for my darkness.

God is Light; in His countenance is no darkness at all; instead we find favor in Jesus, and in His favor, is life. This is good news about God. Isaiah says that He will be our everlasting light (Isaiah 60:20), so for both now and forever we will be dependent on His shining smile for life.

In order to receive His light, I must by faith look into His shining countenance. The following are several Scriptures that you may want to meditate on related to God and light: Numbers 6:25; Psalm 27:1; 139:11,12; Isaiah 60:20; Daniel 2:22; Micah 7:8; John 1:4,5; 8:12; I Timothy 6:15,16; I John 1:5.

Good News about God: The Lord is Your Keeper

Oswald Chambers: “When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God."

Good news about God: The Lord is Your Keeper (Psalm 121; Jude 24,25)

Psalm 121 begins with the psalmist looking to the hills. In Scripture hills and mountains can be picture language for difficulties and hardships, and I'll apply that here. He sees the looming difficulties in his life then asks, “Where will I get help for this?” He shifts his eyes to the Lord and confesses that his help comes from the Creator God.

But the psalmist doesn’t stop there; he goes on to tell the good news about this Maker of the heavens and the earth so that we have a right view of Him and are therein empowered to trust in Him rather than in the power and threat of the difficulties.

There is strong emphasis in this psalm on the Lord being our Keeper. The words “keep” and “keeper” appear six times in this short psalm. The meaning of the word “keep” has different variations to it in the Scriptures, but the common ideas that come through the meanings are:
• To watch or keep an eye on or take heed or pay careful attention to
• To hem in or restrict or detain or withhold
• To protect or guard or attend to

I find that among sincere followers of Jesus there is genuine concern to be faithful and true to Jesus; we spend a lot of emotional energy wondering what it looks like to be true and faithful to Him in the face of our “mountains”. If we don't understand His heart and ways, we easily fall into the religious trap of trying to make it by performance (sheer gritting our teeth to stick to a long list of "do's and don'ts") or we give up entirely because we soon discover that we have no hope of ever fulfilling the requirements. In either case our heart eventually becomes hardened and shut down by spiritual pride or through giving ourselves over to the flesh.

We must know the “good news about God” in order to find rest and not fall into the traps of spiritual competition or spiritual lethargy. According to Psalm 121, He is keeping His eye on me constantly, paying careful attention, hemming me in with great precision and placing boundaries around me that constrain and steer me towards becoming increasingly like Him, protecting and guarding me from destruction. He is fully awake and alert to me every moment and is never caught dozing on the job. It is He who will lead my heart and steps into faithfulness; I can't do that for myself. I don't have enough zeal and energy and desire to see myself through all the obstacles that arise to hinder my progress.

"The Lord is your Keeper"; this is good news about God, because a Person who would do all of this for me (and for all of His children) has got to have an unbelievable interest and desire for me! I'm not just one of millions that He is madly trying to keep up with but am the object of His focus and affections. The more I look at (contemplate) such a Person, the more I am empowered to remain true to Him now and as the Day of the Lord approaches, because my heart is energized to want to be with such a Person.

My role is to stay in His love (Jude 21). In other words, I keep re-focusing on His nature and letting Him love me at all times (especially when I feel most undeserving of it) and I respond in love to Him.

If you want to meditate (chew on) this piece of good news about God, the following Scriptures will help: Gen. 28:15; 28:20,21; Psalm 121; II Thess. 3:3; Phil. 4:7; Jude 24, 25. (Portions about the cross from Isaiah 53 and the four Gospels are also wonderful passages to ponder in order to gain understanding of His fiery passion for His own.)

God bless you as you consider Him!

Knowledge of God in the Face of Jesus

My intent for the new few weeks is to share thoughts on particular aspects of God’s nature each week with the prayer that we grow together in discovering more and more about this unbelievable Person who, in A.W. Tozer's words, is “easy to live with”.

I’m finding in my own life journey with Him that the process of getting extricated from false religion is lifelong; one of the first and biggest hurdles to get over is to acknowledge how much religion there has been and is in me. As fallen humans we are strongly inclined towards this and severely deceived by it because its mask looks so much like the truth of Jesus.

Oswald Chambers says: “When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.”

The longer I live in God and discover the Person He is in truth, the more convinced I am that knowing and embracing the truth of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus sets us free, particularly from religion. Religion is humanistic in that it focuses on the human effort required to "appease" God, whereas the Scriptures focus on God as the One who bears the weight of bringing me into the fullness of relationship with Him that delights and pleases Him. The Holy Spirit goes to great lengths in the Word to show us what God is like so that we will trust Him to bring us into all that He intends for us and so that we will have correct perspective on His role and our role.

So my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will breathe on these postings and magnify Jesus (His favorite assignment). I pray that His light and His truth will lead us into the presence of the holy God (Psalm 43:3) where we see more light (Psalm 36:9) and more truth and are saved from half truths about the splendor and beauty of this Person we worship and love. May His grace empower us to receive light and truth even when it’s at the expense of giving up half truths about Him that we hold dear.