Happy Resurrection Day!
May you be filled with joy today knowing our Redeemer lives!
Tag: Jesus
The Miracle of Snowflakes and Souls
The last couple of weeks or so here in the U.S., people have shoveled, scraped, and trudged their way through enough ice and snow to last the rest of the year.
But as we take a magnifying glass and look at a single snowflake, we’ll see that they really are fascinating little miracles, and so is Christ’s life in us.
Just like precious pearls begin as something ordinary–a grain of sand, snowflakes also begin as something just as unpretentious–a dust particle, a piece of volcanic ash, or sea salt.
As it falls through the atmosphere, each particle forms into a clear ice crystal, its individual shape and size determined by the various conditions each particle encounters as it falls to the ground, like the altitude, temperature, and humidity.
The one thing all snowflakes have in common is they each have six sides or branches.
Each of us is also born with an ingrained imperfection, that is, our sin nature. As we grow, the conditions we encounter, like the family we grew up in, the experiences we have in life, and our own personalities determine the one-of-a-kind person we become.
But our sin nature continues to act as an irritant, wreaking havoc in our souls.
“’Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Isaiah 1:18
God compares our sins to scarlet and crimson.
This word for scarlet – shaniy – refers to a maggot-like insect called a “coccus illcis” which feeds on the leaves of evergreen oak trees. The dried bodies of these insects are used to make a deep red, or crimson, dye.
Our sin acts like those parasitic creatures, eating away at our joy, our souls, and our lives.
(Another factoid I found while looking up the definition of shaniy: the urban dictionary says it’s “a psychopath with demon eyes, this little creature lacks the skill of being nice, she is a very demanding person who is hard to control sometimes, she has the capability to stab someone if she wanted to; her favourite word is **** off.” Does that sound like our sin nature or what?!)
The Lord tells us that though we have been stained with the blemish of sin, He will make them white as snow.
So what makes those former pieces of dust, ash, and sea salt, and our sin, white?
As the snow crystals, or snowflakes, fall to the ground and begin to gather together, the light shining into the snow gets scattered around inside and is reflected around all those unique six-sided snow prisms and the light that comes back out appears white, and the imperfections are no longer seen.
The Bible refers to the number six as the number of mankind, of incompleteness. Just as the one commonality among snowflakes is that they have six sides, we all have in common our imperfect humanity. Without Christ, we are incomplete and impure.
But as we receive Jesus Christ by faith, He becomes a part of us (the number 7 symbolizes completeness), and we become a part of His family, joining together like a snowdrift high on a hill. His light shines into us and is filtered back out through the prism of our character, purifying our hearts and making us white as snow.
It’s amazing to me that God made snowflakes as a microscopic allegory showing us our need for Him. It’s as if He calls to us in the whisper of a tiny, almost secret world and says, “I know all about your weaknesses, your frailties, your sins, but the power of my love can overcome all that!”
We have all come through different and unique backgrounds, circumstances, sufferings, and joys, and the shape our heart and mind have become through our own uniquely-designed life allows Christ to shine through us in the extraordinary ways He’s chosen just for us and the lives around us.
So the next time you have to shovel snow or scrape it off your car, remember God’s love for you through Christ, and how His crimson blood turned our souls white and pure as snow. And remember, too, that the more we come together as one body and one heart with God’s family, the more His light shines in and through us. And doesn’t the world need that right now?
God bless,
Nice Try, Sheldon
Every once in a while you hear someone say they don’t believe in God or the Bible because, they say, the Bible has contradictions. Most people would probably be hard-pressed to actually name one, but as I watched an episode of Young Sheldon – the television show about a budding scientist and atheist who is forever exasperating his Christian mother by raising his hand in the middle of church to ask the pastor a question – he asked one particular question I thought was intriguing and I took it as a challenge.
In the middle of the service, Pastor Jeff quotes Jacob in Genesis 32:30, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
Sheldon immediately turns to his mother and says in all his precociousness, “Is this an appropriate time to mention that John 1:18 says, ‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ Who’s right? Jacob or John?”
Hm. Who is right?
So I started with Genesis, jumped to the beginning of chapter 32 and read to the end of it. There’s a lot going on in these verses, so I’ll keep my answer focused on the immediate action Pastor Jeff quoted.
Jacob is on his way to meet up with his brother Esau, and he’s a little freaked out. It’s nighttime and he’s alone, when suddenly a Man appears and wrestles with Jacob until dawn. After refusing to let the Man go until He blesses him, which He does, “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (meaning Face of God): ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”
Then I flipped over to the book of John, chapter 1. John begins by describing the God/Man Jesus – the Word, the Logos, or expression of the Father – that He was in the beginning, that He was with God, and that He was God. He goes on to describe the deity of the Man, Jesus Christ, that He is the Light born into this world by the will of God.
And then John goes on to say “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
Of course Jacob and John are both right.
Jacob saw God in the form of a Man. In fact he wrestled with Him all night. (Ever wrestled with God in prayer?) Jacob was able to handle seeing and dealing with God in this humbled form covered by flesh.
So when John says no one has seen God at any time, he is saying no one has seen the full glory of the Almighty God (but the Son has shown Him to us).
Even Moses was only allowed to see the back of God.
There have been many times I’ve casually read a portion of scripture that seemed to make no sense at all. It didn’t line up with my preconceived idea of who God is, or it seemed to contradict another part of scripture. By now though I know the Bible isn’t wrong. I am. 100% of the time.
Because I don’t understand it just means my mind is smaller than God’s. Any god whose mind is no bigger than mine is no God at all. And yet the grace of God has revealed Himself to us in His Son.
Because our human understanding is limited, it takes the Spirit of God to interpret His Word and give us understanding. I know that if I pray for wisdom, and really dig into God’s Word, study it and learn what it actually means, I’ll discover the Bible is never contradictory. Not even between the Old Testament and the New. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. His Word is unerring and perfectly compatible with itself.
And by studying it my understanding of God grows, and so does my love for Him.
If you are reading this and you’ve kept your distance from God because you’ve heard the Bible has contradictions, maybe you even have something in particular in mind you believe is a contradiction, I encourage you to read it for yourself. Seek out someone you believe might have the answer, or can dig into God’s Word with you to discover the truth. There’s a website, Got Questions, that allows you to submit questions and also has a large archive of past articles. And I’d be willing to give any questions you have a shot.
And for us who are believers, let’s keep studying God’s Word, or maybe we need to start. There is a lot of teaching out there that is very unscriptural, even among some who seem to have authority, and we need to have a solid understanding of God’s Word, and discernment, so the enemy doesn’t deceive us, leading us to believe things about God that aren’t true, causing disillusionment and drawing us away from Him.
Let us emulate our Berean brothers and sisters, who were “of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:10-11
There are a lot of treasures in there to uncover.
Happy studying,
Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Wise Building
“With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the Lord:
‘He is good; his love toward Israel endures forever.’
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord,
because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.” Ezra 3:11
Heavenly Father, we praise you. We praise you because you’ve laid the foundation of our salvation, which is Jesus Christ, and you’ve made us the temple of your Holy Spirit. Lord, I simply ask you today to help us keep our hearts and spirits focused on you. With all the distractions we have coming at us from so many directions, help us keep The Main Thing, the main thing.
Help us remember that this life is about Who you’ve called us to believe in, to trust, to follow, to proclaim. Help us use the limited time and the gifts you’ve given us to be about our Father’s business, and build only on the foundation of Jesus Christ, serving Him only, building by your Spirit and not our flesh.
For “If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.” 1 Cor. 3: 12-15
Lead us, Lord, so that what we build will survive, and we will receive your reward. In Jesus’ eternal name we pray, amen.
Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Healing
“Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all His benefits –
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Psalm 103:1-5
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you. I come to you today and lift up to you so many us who are suffering with severe and prolonged physical illness. Lord, it’s so easy to lose focus of you when we or a loved one is suffering and there seems to be no end. The day to day pull to focus on the pain, the illness, the medications, whatever it may be, can be overwhelming and exhausting.
Lord, we need your strength. We need your presence to overwhelm us and turn our eyes back to you, to gaze on your beauty, your grace and mercy, your compassion which never ends. Help us remember that our suffering is in your hands, and through it we can identify with Christ’s suffering, with His death and resurrection, for we have died to sin and you’ve made us alive in Him to the spiritual things which are infinitely of more worth.
We ask for your peace that surpasses all human understanding, for your wisdom to lead us every day, and for your joy fill us to overflowing, that we would be a walking testimony of your love and goodness, of the fact that this is not our home, that we wait as we put our hope in a future home, a future life where all things will be made new. So whether you heal us in this life, and I pray if that’s your will for any of us that you would, or if you heal us in the next life, may you be glorified in ways we can only imagine.
Please use us Lord to proclaim your name, to have compassion on others, and to show the world your grace that many would be saved, and those away from you would return.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
May your will be done on earth, Lord, as it is in heaven. May you bring a revival to our own hearts, to the body of Christ, and throughout the world. Maranatha! In the eternal name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen.