Thursday, November 03, 2005

A reflected glory: Is 60:1-3

“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” (Isaiah 60:1-3)
When I was a child, my family used to camp a lot. I can remember some nights when the only light was the light of a full moon. Though there were no other lights, the moon shown bright enough that you could walk around without stumbling. It was bright enough that you didn’t even need a flashlight to get around. What is amazing about the moon is that it has no light of its own; rather it shines brightly because of the reflected light of the sun. The light of the sun reflects off the moon to light our night.

The same is true for us when it comes to the light of the glory of God. In the midst of the darkness all around us God wants us to shine forth His glory for all the world to see. The world does not need to see our own glory, after all, its really not all that bright anyway, but the world need to see the glory of the Lord. Our glory is too dim but God’s glory is bright enough to give light to those walking in darkness. Our lives are to be as a mirror, reflecting the glory of God. It is like Moses when He came down from his meeting with God on Mount Sinai, the scripture says, “It came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34:29-30) Even Jesus when He came to the Earth did not seek to express His own glory but the glory of His father in heaven. “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.” (Hebrews 1:3) Jesus was the reflection of the Father in bodily form.

God wants us to reflect His glory. Paul says, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) God wanted to shine His light into the darkness, so He poured that light into our hearts that we might then let it shine forth to those around us. We need to remove from our lives all hindrances to that light shinning forth. We need to become less concerned about people seeing us and more concerned about them seeing Christ in us. God is glorious and He has done glorious things in us. Let us not hide that from the world. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.” (Matthew 5:14-15)

David Robison

No comments:

Post a Comment