Brilliance

Brilliance – Brilliance is a word that has mostly fallen out of use in everyday language. We use it to describe people. “He/she is brilliant!” However, one of the word’s most common uses in the past was to describe objects. In fact, the older versions of Webster’s Dictionary use this definition in the primary position – very bright, glittering, striking or distinctive are among the terms used to define brilliant.




Certainly, we have met people whose mental accomplishments could be called “striking” or “distinctive.” However, when we are speaking about our Lord, Jesus Christ, brilliance and brilliant take on all the meanings the word has to offer. Certainly Christ is beyond brilliant when it comes to mental abilities. Certainly, God knows many things you and I never will. Certainly, God understands the mysteries of the universe that our greatest scientists struggle to have any conception of at all!



Brilliant, however, is most often used to describe God’s glory. Exodus 24 tells us that the sight of the glory of the Lord was as a “consuming fire.” When Moses was finished speaking to Yahweh God on the mountain, his face shone brightly, so brightly the people asked him to cover himself.



In fact the sound of the voice of God was a conveyor of such power and might that the people trembled in fear. Exodus 20 says that the people asked Moses to tell God to speak only to him and not to them lest they die, so Moses listened to the voice of Yahweh and then told the people what He had said.



When Moses asked to see God’s glory, to come face-to-face with God. Yahweh had to tell Moses, “No.” He had to tell Moses no because the sight of the glory of God was beyond what the human existence could bear. Yahweh was protecting Moses, not denying him.



This same glory that brought fear into the hearts of the Israelites is the glory which the Scriptures tell us will one day cover and fill the whole earth! That is a fearsome thought. That which terrified the people of Israel will one day overpower all else. There will be no getting away from it. God’s glory will indeed be revealed.



Should we be as afraid as the people of Israel were? No, I don’t think we should. We have no need to fear if we belong to Jesus Christ, for Christ has imparted some of that glory to us. He has shared, indeed covered us, with His own righteousness, for it is the unrighteousness which that glory will consume and burn away until nothing is left of it. Exodus 29 even talks about how the glory of the LORD will sanctify the people of Israel. They will not be righteous in their own might and works. They will be granted righteousness because God is glorious. God takes your sin away and gives you His radiant glory that you may be sanctified and numbered among the saints of God as well!

Pastor Craig

Why?

BECAUSE I SAID SO – With or without the exclamation point, in a loud or soft voice, either way it does not tend to make us more cooperative. We want reasons. We want logic. We want it explained to us. We want some input in the decision making process. At least we want our wants and needs taken into consideration.



However, what do we do when the one making the decision has the right and the power to make it? We have all worked for bosses, even if we were out looking for a new job as quickly as we could, who managed with that mindset. Technically, the boss does have the right to make that call. After all, it is his/her business. They are the ones who put up the capital to get it up and going. It’s there name on the signature line of our paycheck. But, still. . .


We don’t take it much better when those words come from God, either. We want to know why it has to be that way. We want to understand the thought process God went through in the process of coming to this particular conclusion, at least that’s what Job wanted. We seldom get it though, do we?

In Yahweh’s call of the prophet Jeremiah he says, “You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.” It doesn’t seem that God is particularly interested in Jeremiah’s input on the situation. God doesn’t seem interested in whether this fits in with the rest of Jeremiah’s schedule. When God comes to us with a task to be done it immediately moves to the top of the To-Do-List! OK, at least it should. God has already decided the destination, the audience, and the message. This is not the office of prophet by committee.

Is this to say that God does not care about our feelings? No, absolutely not. It does remind us that God’s top priority is faithfulness.

Matthew 21 has Jesus telling a story about a father coming to his two sons and asking each of them to go work in the vineyard. The first was rude and disrespectful, telling him flat out, “I WILL NOT!” Later this one went. The second said all the right words but never lifted a finger. Jesus follows the parable by asking the question, “Which one of these sons did the will of the father?” It’s all about follow through.


Later in Jeremiah Yahweh says, “I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” The phrase has two meanings. First, God is not like a harried parent who rattles off a long list of tasks and then forgets what was dished out and to whom. No, He remembers the who, what, when, and where of what He told you to do, and He will watch to see how you perform. Literally, Thank God for grace!


But, secondly, God’s watching is more than an overseer’s task to make sure the work is done. Yahweh’s oversight actually enables the task to be performed! So, before you get quite so anxious about God looking over your shoulder, remember that it is this watching that makes the work possible at all.

Pastor Craig

My Summer Vacation

In just a couple weeks most of our kids will be back to school. I don’t know if this is still something grade school children and youth do at the beginning of the term, but it certainly was a ritual when I was growing up so long ago. It was the writing of the What I Did on My Summer Vacation essay.

Let me preface this by saying I grew up in a small North Georgia town with one older sister. My parents had moved there from Wisconsin in time for me to start Kindergarten and my sister to start first grade. This meant all our relatives were, literally, a thousand miles away. So, guess what our summer vacation was each and every summer?

Yes, you would be correct. We travelled the long, non-interstate route to Wisconsin to visit both sets of grandparents in Merrill, Wisconsin and to help my paternal grandparents do the backbreaking work of hauling in enough hay to last through the Wisconsin winter on their dairy farm.

My essay was the same each and every year. Oh, there were highlights – the summer I got to start driving the tractor; the summer my cousin and I unloaded the whole trailer of bales by ourselves (a feat my grandfather praised us for even though I am sure he had to restack many of those bales we just couldn’t seem to get in there tight enough); playing my Mother’s old 78’s on the record player she used to have at my other Grandmother’s and learning to appreciate the music of the 40’s and 50’s which I still dearly love; learning to ride a bike on the farm; going to summer concerts by the town band at the local band shell; getting a new boomerang that sailed out over the local lake and did not come back!

Other kids went to Disneyland or the new and closer Disneyworld. I went to Wisconsin – land of Holsteins and cheese. Each and every summer, this is what we did, that is until my Grandmother got sick and could no longer help my Grandfather. The farm was sold. They kept a small portion of it and built a house there. Now I watched someone else go and come from that farm house, but they were city folks and didn’t really know much about dairy farming.

We did finally head to new destinations. We went out West, with Grandparents in tow, to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. We went up the East coast to Cape Cod. And, finally, yes finally, I got to go to Disneyworld. It was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but for all the excitement, it couldn’t beat either of my Grandparent’s houses for it was there that I learned how to drive a tractor, ride a bike, appreciate music, and live in relationships even if throwing a boomerang is still not something I have mastered.

It was there I learned that I was loved and could be forgiven, something I only found out later that many people never realize. It was this love that made it so easy to understand the love and forgiveness of God for me in Jesus Christ because I had already seen unconditional love everyday of my life through my parents and grandparents. Sure, the other destinations of my classmates could entertain, but they all fell short of teaching the things that made me who I am today.