February 10

GENESIS 43
Up until February of 2008, I never had a pair of prescription glasses. I never needed them. When my reading vision started decreasing after I hit 40, I began purchasing magnifying glasses. For over ten years I only needed them to read. Then at 50, I occasionally noticed that I couldn’t read distant signs any better than Laura could read them with her glasses on. Her long distance sight has never been all that great. So I went to the optometrist. Indeed, my distance sight was not as good as it used to be. Buying my first pair of prescription glasses and wearing them constantly, I found how annoying it is to have cloudy lenses. At first it was just a problem with finger prints. But after 2 years, now I have a problem with lots of tiny scratches. I can still see what is there. It is just annoying because it is often cloudy and I do not see as clearly as I would like. Often we view the glory of the Lord through the cloudy lenses of our past. We have been looking at the glory of the Lord from Joseph’s perspective. He had sharp clean lenses to view the glory of the Lord
Look at Jacob’s perspective. His wives have died. He thinks Joseph, the eldest son of his favorite wife, is dead. He has only one other child by his favorite wife, Benjamin. Should we mention the other sins of his past that surely cloud his vision of the glory of the Lord? And now they are in a regional famine of great intensity. His grain supply is mostly depleted. He cannot clearly see the glory of the Lord in this dire situation. His lenses need to be cleaned or reground. He sounds like Eeyore, the depressed donkey of Winnie the Pooh fame.
Reuben’s perspective as the first born is interesting. In Chapter 42 he was willing to put his children’s lives on the line in order to obtain food for the clan (typical first born reaction). He then stops just short of literally telling his brothers, “I told you so.” Do you suppose that he was having issues with guilt from not having done enough to intervene for Joseph before he was sold into slavery? Perhaps he was having guilt issues for having slept with Bilhah, Dan and Naphatali’s mother, Joseph’s mother’s handmaid. But now in chapter 43, he steps out of the picture. The field of vision has become just too dim.
What is Judah’s perspective like in the midst of this? It was Judah who put forth the idea to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelite slavers. It was Judah who had the problem with his daughter-in-law-eventually-wife. Judah had said nothing when Reuben offered his sons. Now it was Judah who volunteered not his own sons to be held as ransom for their safe return but his own life. He does so not because he sees the glory of the Lord and trusts in the Lord’s provision, but he does so because he sees no other way for life. His own guilt clouds his ability to see the Lord’s glory.
What is the ten’s perspective as they enter into Joseph’s house? They feared death. I submit it was because their own spiritual vision was clouded by their past sin, particularly against Joseph. The cloud was so thick that they could not see who Joseph was even when they were seated according to birth order and when Benjamin was given a portion 5 times greater than theirs. God was working in their midst, and they could not see Him.
Some times the glory of the Lord is working all around us, and we cannot see it. Our spiritual glasses are to greatly smudged and scratched for us to see what is clear. Does that change His glory? Not one bit. He is still working and doing amazing things. We just don’t see it. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

PSALM 41
Can the Lord reach into my soul and heal me when I feel that I have been betrayed? This Psalm searches some of the limits of that question. David begins by blessing the one who considers the poor. Why would he do that? Often times David had fled those whom he had trusted. Often his flight was so sudden that he could not plan. He fled Saul without even a sword in his hand to defend himself against foes or predators. He had to depend upon the priest to give him the sword of Goliath. He fled Absalom without having made adequate provision for his army. He had to depend upon Barzillai for some of those provisions. Later David was betrayed by Sheba the son of Bichri. This time he called upon general Amasa to put down the rebellion. Amasa drug his feet taking his sweet time to assemble the troops. Joab had to sweep in and pick up the slack. David was familiar with betrayal which left him vulnerable and poor. He was grateful for those who helped him. Therefore, he blessed them.
Many of those times, those betrayals came from those who were closest to him. It was then that he experienced the greatest deprivation. It wasn’t just the economic deprivation; it was also emotional wasting. Jesus was no stranger to this kind of deprivation. As a matter of fact the New Testament writers quote verse 9 in reference to Judas. Jesus was also poor. The only thing of value that He owned was literally the cloak which He wore. This man in poverty had 12 close associates that traveled with Him for the majority of his ministry, about 3 years. One of those associates traded Him in for 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. Jesus, knowing full well what Judas was about to do, extended friendship to him right up unto the very end.
That is the glory of Jesus. He knows our betrayal. But He extends the offer of friendship to us right up until the very end. I can turn from my betrayal and receive His forgiveness, or I can reject it and receive His wrath. When I receive His forgiveness, He expects me to extend the same forgiveness to the poor, because we also were poor. Some will lift up their heel against us, but what else should we expect? If they treated our Lord and Master that way, then we should expect nothing less from some of them. How do you keep motivated? You focus on His glory when He did it. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

JOB 9
I am thankful to the Boy Scouts for teaching me a lot of astronomy. Three of the easier constellations which I learned to identify were the Bear (Big Dipper), Orion (the Hunter) and the Pleiades (seven sisters). Of course just about everyone knows how to recognize the Big Dipper in the northern sky. Orion’s belt is always easy to find when it is in the night sky. The major stars of Orion find themselves to be anywhere from 243 to 1359 light years distant from the earth. Light that arrives this year (2014) from Alnilam, a star in Orion, left in the year 655, 23 years after Mohammed died. It was that year that Constance II lost a major sea battle to the Arabians on the Black Sea. The world was under siege by Islam. You have heard of the Pleiades even if you are not aware of it. Subaru is the Japanese word for the constellation (although they only include 6 stars). If you look at Subaru’s logo, you will see six stars in it. These three constellations have been observed and recorded in ancient cultures world-wide. Somehow they are deeply connected with Man’s collective understanding of our smallness in relation to creation. Even ancient men, who did not have the telescope, could look at the night sky and know the wonder of our smallness in such a vast backdrop of darkness contrasted with light. There is something about the clear unpolluted night sky that illustrates the greatness of our Creator, and our smallness in it.
Job understands his smallness before God as he contemplates the night sky:

8 He alone spreads out the heavens, And treads on the waves of the sea; 9 He made the Bear, Orion, and the Pleiades, And the chambers of the south;” It is this smallness that forces Job to whine, “10 He does great things past finding out, Yes, wonders without number. 11If He goes by me, I do not see Him; If He moves past, I do not perceive Him; 12 If He takes away, who can hinder Him? Who can say to Him, ‘What are You doing?’

Job is totally overwhelmed by the immensity of God. But it is not just immensity in the light of creation. It is also immensity in the sense of justice, righteousness and even time itself. This immensity is altogether frightening and unknowable.
But this same God, who is so great and unknowable, has likewise made Himself knowable. He became one of us in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the unknowable One who has become known by becoming flesh. This One who became flesh became our Mediator with God. When I become united with Jesus, He becomes my mediator, my Advocate. I can now enter the court room of justice with the Father; and when the prosecuting attorney, Satan, accuses me of sin, my defense attorney, Jesus, replies, “He is washed in my blood; any sin that was once there has been washed away.” Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

MATTHEW 25:31-46
Remember the years before and after the death of Howard Hughes? There were a lot of reports of people claiming to have seen the recluse. (Yeah I know, there are people even now who claim Elvis sightings.) Usually they were reports of a man disguised as a homeless person who turned out to be the eccentric billionaire. In a way, that is kind of like the glory of our Lord Jesus. His glory is all around us in a veiled form. We are all created in the image of God. That image is marred and ruined by our sin. But, it is non-the-less still there. It reflects a little of the glory of Jesus. Granted it is greatly veiled by our sinful flesh, but it is still there.
So, anyone, no matter how sinful or impoverished, has something, somewhere deep inside that reflects a little bit of God's image and therefore the glory of the Lord Jesus. This extends from the homeless person to the Queen of England, from the mass murderer on death row to the Pope, from George Bush or Barak Obama to Sadaam Hussein. How I treat them is how I am treating the Lord Jesus. What I do to them is what I am doing to the Lord Jesus.
How can His glory be there? It is simply amazing that He could share a little bit of His glory with each of us, even after we had sinned against Him. I think it is often easier for us to believe that Howard Hughes could show up as a homeless person than to believe that Jesus shows up in some of the people we know and live with. But He does, and that increases His glory!
We also have this promise from Him. One day He will return in His full glory, no more veil. He will sit on the throne of His glory. What is the throne of His glory? Is it just some brilliantly lighted chair? Think about this possibility. If we are created in His image, if we have marred that glorious image with our sin, if He is in the process of restoring that fallen image in us, if the least of these is Him in disguise, maybe the throne of His glory is us in our fully redeemed state. Who gets the glory for our forgiveness? He does! Who gets the glory for our changed lives? He does! Who gets the glory for the reverse of the curse? He does! When He gives us crowns as a reward for our deeds in the flesh, what will we do with them? We will throw them back down at His feet and say, "We are undeserving servants; we have only done what we should have done in the first place!" Truly grasping this will change how I treat other people. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john