Psalm 34:5  NIV Those who look to Him are radiant,                        their faces are never covered with shame. I want to talk about reflecting the radiance of God's glory. I read the above verse in Psalm 34 today as part of my devotional reading and thought immediately of Moses' face being so brilliant that the people around him were afraid to look at him. In Exodus 34 , Moses was on the mountain in the presence of God. He was there for 40 days. After these 40 days with God ( verse 29 ), Moses' face was radiant "because he had spoken with the LORD".  His face was radiant, glowing, shining with God's glory because he had spent time with God.  It was so bright in fact that the people were afraid and wanted him to put a veil over his face when he was with them.  Psalm 34:5 says that "those who look to Him [God] are radiant." When we spend time in the presence of the LORD God, we are radiant. We sh...

John 9:3b   "....said Jesus, “ but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him . " It is so difficult to understand hardship, especially for "good church people" and those we feel exude Christ's image. Why do they go through hardship? Why do bad things happen to good people? The eternal, unanswered question. Ah, but it has been answered, by Jesus Himself. "but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him." In this case it was a man who'd been born blind but it could be any difficulty, injustice, pain, etc. While this isn't the answer that people want - it isn't satisfying, is it? - it is the answer. We suffer for any number of reasons but in all of them the most appropriate answer is so "that the works of God might be displayed". I am not dealing with any particular difficulties, other than being unemployed, so this answer is easy for me. Some would say that I haven't had anything...

Convicted - yet again. Yesterday, I asked that you provide feedback to bloggers. To some extent, maybe a large extent even, this was a request for encouragement for me. Today, in a devotional by Oswald Chambers called Devotions for a Deeper Life A Daily Devotional , I am reminded that it's not about me. The suggested reading is John 7:32 - 39, and is about living water flowing out.  Oswald Chambers notes that Jesus says to " drink of me and out of you shall flow rivers of living waters ". (John 7:38 KJV)   Chambers points out that the focus of this is Jesus, not the river flowing out. That means that we must focus on Christ and let Christ work through us.  We aren't supposed to look to see the flow, to find the "encouragement", to see results of OUR endeavors. That would take our focus off Christ and place it onto the work. The work is NOT our focus. Christ is. So in evaluating myself against this day's devotion, I discover that I have been focused...