Sunshine

On August 22, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 8: 12

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

I hope you were able to see the solar eclipse yesterday. It was a remarkable event; many observations to be made but there is one thing that really stood out to me. At the totality, the sky became like nighttime. What amazed me was how little sunlight it took to light up the earth again. As soon as the sun began to peek out, the earth began to look like mid-afternoon again.

It reminded me of Jesus. Without Jesus, there is only darkness. It takes only a bit of Son-shine to make the darkness flee. With even a little Son, hope arises. Someone said, “Wow, the sun is really powerful.” How much truer is that of the Son? He turns darkness into light and life. Where he is, there is no darkness. We need not stumble in the darkness because he lights our path.

Some people think those are just cute sayings but for those who walk in the light, you know they are true in a very real sense. Jesus spoke literally about himself in this verse. Without him there would be no light and no life. Without the sun, the earth would die. We need sunshine for plants to grow. Without the Son, I believe even the sun would die because everything was made through him and nothing that was made exists apart from him.

Over the next weeks you may continue to see news stories and pictures from the solar eclipse. I hope it will make you think about the glory of Jesus and his resurrection story. From the darkness of his death, light arose and through that resurrection breathed life back into each of us. Let all the earth praise the Son. Let all the universe, sing his praises. Thank you Father for sunshine; thank you more for Sonshine.

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Eclipse of my Heart

On August 21, 2017   /   Word of the Day   /   1 Comment

Joshua 10: 12 – 13

Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,

“O sun, stand still at Gibeon,
And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.”
So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies.

In honor of the solar eclipse today, I decided to send you a verse about another amazing day in God’s heavens. Everything in the universe, including the sun, is in God’s domain. God actually stopped the sun and the moon in their paths because Joshua needed more time and in faith spoke the words of command. This is such an amazing passage. Joshua’s boldness is, at the very least, remarkable. Then, the fact that the sun and moon obeyed is nearly incomprehensible, but there you have it. The faith partnership of God and man can accomplish anything.

In thinking about today’s eclipse, I was again impressed by the order God created. The moon had to be a specific size and at a precise distance between the earth and the sun in order to totally eclipse the sun which is far bigger in size. It just amazes me that God thought of all these things; that He actually took into consideration the movement of the heavenly bodies and all of the implications of their orbits. Further, He considered, contemplated and calculated all of the variable involved for today’s eclipse before He created anything. These moments have been in His calendar since before the beginning of time, since before the founding of the earth.

I know some people believe this is all completely random but I just can’t swallow that argument. When you look into the sky today and the sun disappears for a few minutes you will see the glory of God in His creative authority. This isn’t happenstance. It is calculated science and He knew the math and the science in the beginning. Whatsmore, He knew you and knew you would be standing on the earth on this special and momentous day. You are part of His calculation, part of His anticipation.

I hope you will consider our God and Father today as you view this glorious spectacle of His creation. I pray you will allow Him to touch your heart with renewal and new birth. You may ponder what these signs in the heavens mean, prophetically, you may simply wonder at the glory of creation, or it may be that a sense of awe wells up within you as you remember that your own Dad made all that you see. Whatever, touches you this day, I hope that you will allow the Father to speak into your spirit the special reason He had you be born in this time and to be a part of this event.

I would like to leave you with one last point to ponder. Consider also the crucifixion account in Luke 23: 44 – 46, “And it was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, the sun being obscured; and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit My spirit.’ And having said this, He breathed His last.”

I hope you and Dad have a great day!

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