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Unapproachable Light

When you pray, do you think about who you are praying to? Of course, of course. I mean… thinking about what the disciples… saw when Jesus was transfigured on the Mount of Olives. Jesus was transformed before them. His clothes became shining white… whiter than any launderer on earth could ever get (Mark 9:3). When John had a vision of Jesus in Revelation 1, His eyes were as a flame of fire, His head and hair were white like wool, His feet were like fine brass refined in the fire, His voice was like the sound of many waters, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.

Can you see it?

Also, in Daniel 7, Daniel describes a vision of the Ancient of Days. Check it out. In this case, I believe Daniel is referring to a vision of the Father and the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven to meet Him. But look at the imagery. Remember when Jesus answered the high priest at His trial, He said “Hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven”.

I love coming before God in prayer and being able to read these visions of Him and be amazed at His person. He dwells in unapproachable light, yet by His unmerited favor that He shows us, He allows us to know Him… or rather, to be known by Him.

“I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time– He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.” – I Timothy 6:13-16

Life seems ‘eh’, at times. But thanks be…

We go through life, day by day, and what for? We hang out with friends (or not), go to jobs to pay bills (or not), talk to family (or not), go to church (or not), and do stuff. Everyday we do this stuff. For what?

Without God there is no meaning in life.

Life is so short. I could get in a car accident and die today. I could contract a disease or get murdered… and so could you. What is your life for?

I have listened to a lot of atheist debates and arguments against the existence of God. They sound completely idiotic to me now. I walk outside and look around and think… damn, they are idiots. Professing to be wise they became fools.

Beyond that I have listened to people try and discount, nullify, degrade, and ridicule the Bible. I have heard all the 101 reasons why they think the Bible isn’t true… and they are stupid reasons. Dumb, foolish reasons that mask the greater problem of their own pride… well, our own pride. I am no better. Those would just as soon be my stupid reasons if God wasn’t merciful to me.

All flesh is as grass. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God endures forever. It will never go away. It will always stand. It can never be defeated. I am thankful for that.

All that is good in this life comes from God. Everything good. Everything perfect comes from the Father of lights with whom there is no inconsistency. Everything that is not from God is not good. It is corrupted and messed up.

Satan, sin, and our sinful nature do not produce anything good. There is nothing good in our flesh. There is no one good but God.

I am thankful that even though I was dead in my sins, even though I was in darkness, even though I was born an evil sinner having already chosen of my will in Adam to sin against God… that God is rich in mercy. I am thankful cause there is nothing I could do.¬†I must come to him and yet I am evil and cannot come.

I am thankful that He gave me unearned, undeserved, unmerited favor. I think we get numb to the word ‘grace’… and forget that it means unmerited favor. He chose me of His own good pleasure and of nothing I had done.

I am thankful that God blinded the Apostle Paul on the road to damascus in order to save him from himself. I am glad that God ordained a marine to witness to my Dad in Japan. I am glad that I was born to my Dad and God ordained him to be the means by which His Spirit enlightened my eyes.

I hope I have been that for people I have come in contact with. People I have prayed with. People I have prayed for… I pray that the prayers I have prayed and the time I have had with them would be the means God has ordained to open their eyes by His Holy Spirit to see that life is pointless without God.

Though, in a great house, there are vessels for honor and vessels for dishonor… God will use both for His glory. That is the end of it. For His glory. For my life to have meaning, I desire to be a vessel for honor for the glory of God. Whether for honor or dishonor it will bring glory to God in some form (in His justice upon me or His mercy). Being that He has put the desire in my heart for Him, I see that the goal is His glory in all things. A worthy goal it is, and it will be done.

Having the desire to seek God is a good thing. “Without faith it is impossible to please God. For he who comes to Him must believe that He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him”. The ‘diligently’ part always hit me… well, the whole verse always ‘hits’ me.

So alot of people believe that God ‘is’… so what, so do demons. It’s the diligently seek Him part that gets you. It’s the “prepare your heart to seek the Lord”. It’s the “call upon the Lord”. It’s the “seek the Lord while He may be found”. It’s having your thought bent on it… your mind ever seeking Him. It’s ongoing. For the rest of your life, continually, never stop seeking, everyday.

When I think of ‘diligently’, in this instance I think of ‘all the time’. Daily seeking God. As He has revealed Himself in His Word, then that means daily reading His Word. Let him who boasts, boast in this “that He understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, executing lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these I delight”. The Bible is able to make you wise unto salvation. The Word of God is powerful. It teaches you not only about God but how to communicate with Him.

I am thankful that Jesus went to prepare a place for me and that any suffering of this present time will not compare with the glories that will follow. Beyond that, throughout history, many men have been used by God for showing His glory. God “makes” men (and women:), men do not ‘make’ men. There are no complete “self-made” men or women. One cannot be complete while being dead in sins and reaping the consequences of sin.

So how should I go out in this world? How should I continue? Should I submit to God? I will. And I will leave the consequences to Him.¬†And I will still mess up… and that will be of my own flesh that cannot work the righteousness of God… and God being the Good Parent that He is…

Life seems ‘eh’ at times. But thanks be to God who saved me. “For by unmerited favor you have been saved through complete trust and confidence, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”

This post was written for three people, one being myself, the other being my Lord, and I hope the third is you… yes you… no, not you, but you.

The Lord must be hallowed

I am currently reading in the book of 2 Samuel for my quiet time and chapter 6 just totally hit me… as it always does. There are connections here though that are true throughout all scripture and time periods. King David is bringing up the ark from Kirjath Jearim and instead of carrying the ark with the poles they set it on a cart. When the oxen stumble, Uzza puts out his hand to make sure the ark is steady and God kills him for his irreverence.

“Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzza, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God.” 2 Sam 6:7

The same thing happened when Nadab and Abihu offered profane fire in censers before the Lord when He had not commanded it. He killed them both. I believe the answer to these outbursts is given in the same text in Lev. 10:3 “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.”

God must be regarded as holy. He must be hallowed. He must be sanctified. He must be glorified. It is not an option for those who come near Him… it MUST be done.

This is also seen in the New Testament in several cases but I will mention one:

“For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgement to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you and many are dead.” 1 Cor. 11:29-30

Paul addresses the Corinthian church and rebukes them for treating the Lord’s supper lightly and tells them that they are eating and drinking judgement on themselves and that many are sick, weak, and dead because of it. This is all because they did not reverence or hallow or sanctify that which God had sanctified. They treated it irreverently. So God may judge things swiftly or slowly, or¬†any combination like swiftly yet with drawn out consequences (being sick or weak) or quickly with immediate consequences (striking you dead).

Having said that, I think the reaction of David is similar to many of ours. David was angry when God killed Uzza. He was angry and afraid of God and asked “How can the ark come to me?”. I think he was thinking that he would have done the same thing out of a good motive to protect the ark as what Uzza had done. The difference, I think, is that the Spirit of the Lord was on David and He was merciful to him and did not allow him to treat the ark irreverently directly but taught him a lesson by it. The lesson is: He must be regarded as holy. He must be hallowed. He must be set apart. David had the ark carried in a way that God had not commanded.

So it is with us, if we come near to God. We must set Him apart and He must be hallowed. I think it is one of the reasons I have a hard time with jokes that involve God or any depictions of God in an irreverent way. I of course do not want to be appear “holier than thou” with other friends, but at the same time I could care less because I would much rather appear that way when it is not true than be what my conscience tells me is irreverent and does not sanctify God and does not set Him apart and does not glorify Him. Of course I mess up and miss things… but when something is evident to me I do not wish to treat God irreverently.¬†

In fact, it’s not like we can treat Him reverently enough. For example when we use superlatives to describe something… like “awesome” or “most amazing” or “incredible” or “best ever”… often I, and we, use them to describe something like food. In that case we might say “that meal was awesome” and by doing so we are greatly overstating the case. Where as, when we say “God is awesome” we can never put enough force behind those words… we always understate with that superlative. So we can say we had the most amazing meal and that God is the most amazing being and yet with one we vastly overstate and with the other we immeasurably understate the significance.

After watching some of the movies I have seen (regrettably) and hearing the profane things said about God, if I were God I would have probably toppled the theater and killed everyone in it just for taking part. Especially after lavishing the lovingkindness on everyone that God lavishes. But thankfully I am not God and thankfully God is not only a just God but He is rich in mercy. He died for the rebellious, ungodly, sinner… like me. He is rich, rich, rich in mercy… overflowing with riches in mercy and lovingkindness.

So… back to David… after I kept reading, it looks like they got it right the next time and carried the ark as God had commanded. They regarded Him as holy and hallowed His name by obeying His commands. For they ¬†learned “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified”.

The Lord must be hallowed.

The Power Of Being Enraptured

Something I have been thinking on lately is the power of being enraptured. That is, the power of delight, joy, pleasure, wonder, and awe… all tied up together.

Growing up in church and hearing and seeing so many people struggling with so many things it makes you think about how people battle those things. Many people are determined and disciplined. Both of which are good things. Others continually pray and quote or memorize scripture… both of which are most excellent things. Psalm 119:9 “How can a young man cleanse His way? By taking heed according to Your word.”

What I have noticed though is that there is so much more power in delighting in the Lord and being enraptured in the Lord. Surely this also is a mercy from the Lord, just as prayer is and just as His word is. Also, I think they coincide… that is, knowing His word, communing with Him, and delighting in Him… and in that harmony there is incredible power against the flesh.

So now it leaves me asking, how? How do I, how do we get swept up in God such that our delighting, our pleasure, and our duty make light and easy work of defeating sin and the flesh? It is a gift from God. I do believe that discipline puts one in line to receive it. Discipline in reading God’s Word, discipline in prayer, discipline in edification of reading, writing, listening, and learning (that is the discipline of our environment – what do we watch, read, and listen to). Garbage in, garbage out, God within, God without. God is not mocked, whatsoever a man sows, he will also reap.

So I think the discipline comes first. I know that I have by no means “attained”, but I am on a journey and undergoing a process. I can see that as God is changing me, as He is setting me apart, as He is sanctifying me, that, the power of me being, not only in awe of who He is, but also delighting in Him and being swept up in Him (I would want to be as much as I can at all times) is so great in defeating the allure of anything that is not right. The allure of temptations is continually there and even though it trips us up many times, it is far easier to see sin for the destruction that it truly is, or as I like to think of it, the “fake food” that it is, especially when you are savoring the “gourmet delights” of God.