Fullness of Joy (W.o.W. Rewind)

What is your beloved more than another beloved,
    O most beautiful among women?
What is your beloved more than another beloved,
    that you thus adjure us?

Song of Solomon 5:9

The world asks Christians this same question every day. "What is your God more than any other god? Who are you to say your god is better then mine? What is it about your God that makes you so sure He is the only one?" Believers better be prepared to answer this question just as the bride-to-be in the Song of Solomon was. She replies, "My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand" (Song of Solomon 5:10).

That there is no other god like our God is fundamental to Christianity. but we no longer extol God's glories in our churches. Our sermons focus more on the duties of man than the glories of God. We shy away from reveling in God's beauty for fear that it sounds too spiritual or too mystic. Or perhaps we have simply fallen out of love with God altogether. Perhaps we have lost our sense of awe at who He is. When spending time meditating on His Word or communing with Him in prayer feels like drudgery to you, you know you're in trouble.

To enter into God's presence, to gaze on His beauty, to study His wisdom, to gain knowledge of the divine, these are the greatest gifts a human could dare hope to receive. This isn't drudgery. This is the very fullness of joy!

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11- emphasis added)

You may find some measure of happiness or even joy apart from God in this world, but fullness of joy is found nowhere else but in His presence. There is joy unspeakable in the private prayer time spent in the presence of God. There are tears of joy, heart-bursting hope, doubt-smashing faith, clarity of thinking and the boldness to persevere even when all seems lost- these are all found in God's presence alone.

When we lose sight of this, we can no longer satisfactorily answer the world's question "What is your God more than any other god?" But more than this, we have lost our own way. When we cease to see God as that which will make us supremely happy, we start to turn to lesser gods for our happiness. As the prophet Jeremiah said, "my people have... forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water" Jeremiah 2:13.

Turn back to God and find fullness of joy in Him alone. I promise you He is the only place you will find it.

The Light of the World

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. Pause and feel the weight of that for a moment. There are souls languishing in darkness and you are God’s rescue plan. You are the light.

At the time Jesus spoke these now famous words they used small oil lamps to light their homes. They would light the small lamp and they would place it on a stand to elevate it and maximize the light it could give to everyone in the house. Jesus’ point is that you should let your light shine before men so they may see your good deeds and glorify God in Heaven.  

God wouldn’t have called you to be a light if He didn’t have a lamp stand to set you on. He will put you in situations that allow other people to see you shine. So shine! Be the same person in front of believers and unbelievers. Act the same all the time. Don’t dim your light to make unbelievers more comfortable. Don’t hide your light. Don’t be embarrassed to be a good person and do good things. Don’t hide your compassion or kindness. Do good openly not to get credit or glory or yourself but so God can be glorified.

When you do that, when your life is demonstrably good and everyone can see how you serve those around you, then your life will be a light for everyone. Sure! Some will reject you. They may even persecute you for shining your light in their eyes. But they will have seen the light all the same and you will have done your job. They won’t be left without a witness and God will receive the glory. So shine your light today, believer. Bring glory to God. 

Pause (W.o.W. Rewind)

There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

I pride myself on being a hard worker...though some days I wonder if this is more pride and less a fair evaluation of my work ethic. Still I try to live up to the standard of my heroes. I try not to give in when things get difficult or give up when something doesn't quite come together. This is good, but there are limits. It is possible for a person to work himself into the ground. It's also possible to work and work and work and never quite get anywhere. 

The teacher who wrote Ecclesiastes understands this well. He laments the vanity of life, the cyclical nature of our world that makes it hard for any one man to make a lasting impact. 

All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. (Ecc. 1:2-5)

You do the laundry, and the clothes get dirty again. You mow the lawn, and the grass keeps growing. No matter how hard you work there will always be something else to do and what you have done will almost invariably undo itself again. So how are we to live in a world this maddening?!

Our passage for the day gives us insight. We should be careful not to get caught up rushing, rushing, rushing all the time... doing things that don't make any lasting change. Ultimately, we can't break completely free of the cycles of life. In some ways we are stuck on this hamster wheel. We can run as fast as we can but all we'll accomplish is making the wheel spin faster. We aren't really getting anywhere. 

Instead, the teacher challenges us to pause. To look around us and consider what God has blessed us with and what has come out of all our hard work. Take time to enjoy the gifts God has given you, not selfishly, but expressly as gifts from God. Take time to thank Him for these things. You just may find that taking time to pause and turning to God in gratefulness will foster more spiritual growth than all your activity ever has. 

A God We Don't Fully Know

Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”

He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.”

Judges 13:17-18

When Samson's father asks the angel who foretold his son's birth what his name is, he doesn't realize he is speaking to no ordinary angel but to the angel of the LORD... to God Himself. So when the angel answers that his name is "beyond understanding" it actually tells us something about God. 

The phrase for "beyond understanding" is sometimes translated "wonderful" or "secret." That's an interesting assertion since God had already told Israel that His name was Yahweh which is sometimes translated as "I am the I am" or "I will be who I will be." So what does this passage mean? Is Yahweh not God's name? Is God's true name a secret? Is it beyond our understanding? Or is His name Wonderful?

Well, let's look at the only other time this Hebrew phrase is used in Scripture for help. In Psalm 139:6 the same phrase is used. That verse says "...such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." I think that helps us understand what God is saying about His name in Judges 13:18. His name is too wonderful for us to fully understand. It is too lofty for us to attain.   

This is a powerful reminder that every facet of who God is, even down to His name, is beyond our ability to grasp fully. There is no single truth about God that we understand fully. I have a Master's degree from seminary. I have served full-time in church ministry for over a decade and in a very real sense it could still be said that I don't yet fully understand a single thing about God. I'm not saying I don't know anything about God. I'm saying that even the things I do know about Him, I only know in part. 

1 Corinthians 13:12 puts it this way. "For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

There are things we know to be true about God with certainty and confidence, but we must remember that even those things we only know in part. There is a depth to who God is and what He is doing and what He has done that we simply cannot plumb. There is always more of God to know, always more to love, always more to discover and worship Him for. This is part of what makes an eternity spent in Heaven possible. There will always be more to God.

Who could claim to fully comprehend God?! Who has apprehended His love? Who has mastered His justice? Or who could claim to have grasped His perfection or beauty? No one! There is no single truth about God that we comprehend fully or understand completely. And this is cause for praise! 

I praise God that I do not know Him fully, that He will always provide a joyous mystery for me to revel in unfolding. That there are greater depths still for me to plumb. And there is joy upon joy in knowing Him more.