Skip to main content

Radiating Radiance

It’s part of a priestly blessing, originating with Aaron, and used through the ages:  

“The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you”;   (Numbers 6:25)

This shinning of His face is a radiance or shining forth of His divine favor toward us.  Other passages further expand upon what that divine favor might entail:

“Make your fact shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love!”  (Ps 31:16)

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, ” (Ps 67:1)

“Restore us, O God of hosts, let your fact shine, that we may be saved!”  (Ps 80:7)

When His divine favor shines forth, it is can save us, bless us, restore us and extend grace to us. 

And if we look to Him and become radiant, it even somehow removes shame:

“Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”  (Ps 34:5)

We can also look around us and see His divine favor impacting others and this too can cause us to be radiant:

“Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall come from afar…  Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you…”  (Isa 60:4-5)

“They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more.” (Jer 31:12)

One of our great joys and privileges is that we can see the radiance of God in His Son, Jesus:

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power...”  (Heb 1:3)

In fact, seeing the fact of Christ can have an extraordinary impact on us:

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4:6)

His light shining into our hearts points us to the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ. 

So look to Him and be radiant!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Excel Still More!

To excel, according to some of the meanings from a few dictionaries, is to surpass others, do extremely well, outdo, do something better than anyone else. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, we find the phrase “excel still more”.   It prompts the question:  if we are already doing something better than anyone else, why would we be encouraged to do even more? Perhaps it would be helpful to see the wording that other translations use for “excel still more” to see why we would be encouraged to do so.  Here is a sampling: • abound more and more • to keep doing so more and more • but try even harder • live that way more and more. • that you progress even more. • that you increase more and more in how you ought to walk Maybe it would also be helpful to see some other verses where the word “excel” is used: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which when translated means Dorcas); this woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity which she did habitually.”...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Year Trash or Treasure?

You probably know the old saying:  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  I am not going to try to prove or disprove it, just look at it from a different angle. Cheryl and I were recently walking on a beach in Florida .  A man was walking along with a bag and was picking up trash and putting it in the bag.  Was he picking up things of value? We also saw a different man walking along the same beach with a metal detector.  He would swing it back and forth and would occasionally stop and dig in the sand.  Was he looking for things of value? Both were intent.  Both were focused.  Both were diligent. I’m guessing that the one picking up trash was not looking for things of value.  I’m also guessing that, by picking up trash, he was valuing the beauty of the beach and didn’t want the trash to mar it.  The one with the metal detector, I’m guessing that he was not looking for metallic items of trash but was looking for...
1 comment
Read more

Value Proposition

Value proposition:  it’s a marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.  It should clearly and concisely communicate what customers can gain from selecting a particular brand over that of its competitors. In a value proposition, you don’t want your product to be viewed as being worth less than what your competitors offer.   But even worse, in a bit of a quirk of how letters and spaces can fall, if you take out the space between “worth” and “less”, you get “worthless”, which means something of no value.   If that word is used in conjunction with how your product is viewed by customers, it’s a word that will likely kill your brand. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, in a sense, communicated some value propositions. In chapter three, he starts off with describing the value of some things that many considered as extremely valuable in that day and age.   They had to do with status and achievement in the reli...
Post a Comment
Read more