Tag Archives: Glory

The Mirror

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Once upon a time, there was a magical mirror. Perhaps you’ve heard of one of these before. This full length mirror framed by gilded flowers had the ability to show the viewer not only what was on the outside, but it also showed what was on the inside of a person. A good person would look into the mirror and would see a beautiful face staring back. A bad person would look into the mirror and see an ugly face staring back. Many people from distant lands came in search of the magic mirror, because they wanted to know what was in their heart. When people left, some of them were in tears, some were rejoicing, others screamed, and others were silent.

The Keeper of the Mirror was a middle-aged man named Henley. He had a daughter named Blaine. Henley told Blaine when she was 12 that she was ready to look into the mirror. His only caution was, “Don’t believe everything you see. There is more behind the mirror.” The child nodded and looked into the mirror for the first time. Staring back was a beautiful face, but as she smiled at her reflection, her teeth were green and sharp. She covered them up with her hand, and her hands were like claws. Her face recoiled and the eyes bulged out too large for her head. She looked away from the mirror, covered her face, and told her father, “Father, I am hideous!”

The old man knelt down in front of her and said, “Look into my face.” She looked. “What do you see?”

She looked and saw his eyes full of compassion and his gentle smile. She didn’t answer him.

“Remember what I told you when you look into the mirror, “Don’t believe everything you see. There is more behind the mirror.”

“So, I’m not ugly?”

“What you saw was true, but about your heart, and what is in your heart will come through your face.”

“Why were my teeth green and sharp, why did I have claws, why did I have eyes too big for my face?”

“That is something only the Maker of the Mirror can tell you.”

“Where is he?” Blaine asked

“If you look for him, you’ll find him.”

“I don’t think I want to. What if he tells me that what I saw was true?”

“That is something for all people who look into the mirror to decide: What will they do with what they see?” said Henley, and then he put his arm around his daughter and led her out of the Chamber.

That night, after Henley had gone to bed, Blaine got up and went to the mirror chamber alone. She couldn’t help but look again to see if it was the same. She trembled, but she also was drawn inescapably it seemed.

Entering the chamber, she uncovered the full-length mirror framed by golden crafted flowers, but she couldn’t bring herself to look into it. She worked up the courage and looked, and there was a girl who was her, but the more she looked the more distorted the image became. Her nose became pointy, her shoulder’s slumped, her hair falling out. She wanted to smash the mirror as sobs racked her body. She crumpled to the ground crying.

She remembered her father’s words, “Don’t believe everything you see.” But if I’m not supposed to believe it, why did he let me see it? Does the mirror lie? Then, she remembered the second half of what he said, “There is more behind the mirror.” She looked up at the mirror frame. It was wide enough to be a door frame. She covered the mirror, and then grabbing ether side of the mirror, she wiggled it to see if it would move. It moved on the right side.

The mirror swung open, and in that dark chamber, a new doorway opened up. Inside the doorway was a craftsman’s shop. She walked in and saw many crafts hanging on the wall. Many mirrors not like the magic mirror.

She walked past them toward the lamp-light at the workbench on the far side of the Craftsman’s Shop.

“It’s a bit late” said the voice of a man with a tinker’s helmet on at the work bench “To be up and about, isn’t it?”

“Who are you?” said Blaine shakily.

“I am a craftsman.”

“Are you the Maker of the Mirror?”

“I am.” said the man.

“Then can you tell me why I saw what I saw?”

“I can, if you want to know.”

“Why were my teeth green and sharp, why did I have claws, why did I have eyes too big for my face? Was it real what I saw or was it a lie?”

“All my looking glasses tell the truth. Your teeth are green and sharp because you are greedy and the things you love are not all good. Your hands have claws because your fear makes you fight others, you had eyes too big for your face because you are proud and think too much of yourself.”

The girl was angry, but slowly as she breathed she knew what he said was true.

“I guess that means I’m ugly. She said sadly.

“Only if you want to stay that way. That is something for all people who look into the mirror to decide: What will they do with what they see?”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. Your heart is something you don’t have the power to change.”

Her heart sank.

“But that’s not the right question.” continued the craftsman

“What is the right question?”

“‘What can I do?'” Said the Craftsman.

Blaine hesitated, “What can you do?”

“I can show you another mirror.”

He offered her a way over to the other side of the workshop. There was a mirror with a very different frame. It had a ring of thorns around it.

“Will it show me what is in my heart?”

“Yes.” he said.

“Will it be true?”

“Yes. All my looking glasses tell the truth.” he responded gravely.

“But what if I see the ugliness again. I couldn’t bear to see that all again.”

“There is more for you to see if you will seek for it.”

Blaine looked at the thorns, and she felt like she had seen more than she wanted to see already. She turned to leave the craftsman’s shop, but at the doorway of the first mirror she stopped, and her head hung sadly.

“What if my ugliness is really all there is?” She said.

A voice behind her gently called, “It may be, but if you will not look into this mirror, then the mirror outside will be all you have seen. Everyone must look into that mirror, but there is more, if you will see it.”

A tear clouded the surface of her eye, and she blinked it back. She turned back to the craftsman. She walked across the shop, slowly, up to the thorny mirror, and with a feeling like resignation, she lifted her eyes to look.

The face staring back at her was her own. Again she saw the teeth were green, the hands were claws, her eyes too big. She looked and her lips trembled at what she saw. The nose was pointy, her shoulders looked frail and slumped and her hair was falling out.

Then. . . she noticed the other person in the reflection. The Maker of the Mirror stood beside her without his tinkering helmet, and his own reflection came into it, and she saw his face. To her amazement, It was brilliant like the sun shining bright and beautiful, and and she realized the beauty of the heart of the one who stood beside her. It was comforting, but also terrifying, because she saw her own ugliness right next to his beauty.

She looked away from the mirror at him frozen to the spot not sure if she wanted to run or cry.

“Who . . . Who are you?”

“I make things.” He said smiling. “And I also remake things.”

Then, with his two strong hands, he turned the mirror and stepped to the side. Now when she looked into the mirror, all she saw was his reflection glowing at her, and slowly, his reflection, started to take her distortions, and put them on himself. Now He was horrific and ugly looking, his teeth greened, his hands clawed, his eyes big, his nose pointy, his shoulders slumped, and his hair falling out. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing: her ugliness had been transferred to him. She felt so awful that it was her ugliness had caused him to be so disfigured.

Then, he turned the mirror back to her, and she looked and saw her face again. Her face had changed and she gasped. There was no longer any distortion of her features. All of them had been taken away. Instead, her face was glowing and youthful. It beamed like the sun just as His did. She cried again, but this time the tears were happy.

She looked away from the mirror, and saw the Maker standing there, with his eyes full of compassion and love. His own face was still bright with joy.

She was silent.

“How?” she finally asked.

“I made this mirror for you, to remake you.”

“You know me?”

“I’ve been waiting for you. I had hoped you would find me here.” He said.

“My father told me there was more behind the mirror. Why do you hide behind the mirror?”

“Not many people are ready for what I have to show them. Only those who seek me diligently are ready to find me.”

Blaine’s heart was full of peace. “What do I do now?”

“Take this mirror with you. Use it to show others what I have done for you.”

She took the thorny frame into her hands. One of the barbs pricked her finger, and she said, “Ow. Why is my frame so thorny?”

“That, you will understand more in time.” the Maker said.

She took the mirror to her room and went back to sleep. From then on, every time she looked, she remembered the face of the man who made her mirror, and who remade her. And when she grew up, she became the Keeper of the Mirror in place of her father.

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“To a Mature Man”: Stage 9–Resurrection

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Brother,
– – There is plenty of mystery for me surrounding this stage, but I believe Paul: “If we are united with him in the likeness of his death, surely we will be united in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Rom 6:5) A Christian who has gone on past these stages and has remained faithful to the end has passed from the Kingdom stage to the Victory stage. Even in victory and a new resurrected life, however, I think the book of Revelation and Genesis shows that there is still peril.

Toward the end of the Bible, the last threads of the knot of Satan’s twisting are being untied. As deception ruined the good world God made, even when the people were not themselves sinners, it could be that a person who claimed allegiance to God through all the previous stages might falter into the Evil one’s clutches.

Jesus

It is tempting to think of Jesus’ death as the end of the story, since that’s where the natural mind ends. However, the story of the Bible goes through death to Resurrection! Jesus who endured to the end, was raised up by

  • The Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11)
  • God the Father (Romans 10:9)
  • The Glory of the Father (Romans 6:4)

And his resurrected body was

  • Flesh and Bone (Luke 24:39)
  • Able to eat food (Luke 24:42-43)
  • First-fruits of those who are raised (1 Corinthians 15:20)

He walked among us as a fully alive and restored human though he still carried the nail marks.

The Believer

I believe I can confidently assert that as was Christ at his resurrection, so will the believer be. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:42-44,

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

A Personal Difficulty

For a long time I thought that Christians would be only disembodied spirits, or having some kind of quasi-physical body when we die, but I believe the resurrection of Jesus’ body was evidence that the Believer’s resurrected body will be just like Jesus’: still distinctly human. Perhaps Gnostic influences have led me to seek some sort of abolition of the physical body. But since the end of the story is new Heaven and Earth, I still believe God’s plan is to redeem the whole believer, even their bodies.

Pitfall

The danger I see in this stage is the same danger that Adam and Eve faced in the Garden of Eden: Deception. Matthew 24:24 speaks of some time in the future from Jesus’ day when false prophets would arise to deceive, even if possible God’s chosen ones. I see that this is a possibility as humanity will have the choice to heed the deception the Evil One even at the end of time during Christ’s reign of 1,000 years. (Revelation 20:8) It is the sin into which the first human fell, and it is also a sin into which the new human can fall, so he must take heed to obey God’s Word, or he too may be swept away in the Evil one’s last ditch effort to sway the nations against God.

Application:

  1. Walk with God. The Evil One can only deceive a believer as he is wandered away from His blessed presence. Stay before His face, and keep Him before your face so that you will never be shaken.
  2. Listen to His Word–When God speaks, do not harden your hearts, but humbly receive the gift of God’s goodness to you.
  3. Obey Him. “His commandments are His enablements” said a woman to a Pastor in Portland, Oregon named J. Carl Laney. When God gives a command, it is to be obeyed. To cause disobedience is the evil one’s aim, and his greatest method is to deceive. Until he is cast into the lake of fire, you must resist him, and remain faithful to obey God, or you too will fall with him.
  4. Represent God on earth. The restored image of humanity has the privilege of representing Him on earth. As He is, so are we in the world. Now all of Creation is set up as the Temple of the Goodness of God, and the resurrected human is the one built to image God in His delightful creation.

Final thought:

Hard to believe that there may be one more stage to cover. After all, the Evil One is defeated, death is defeated, what could possibly be left? Think with me. What was the last thing we have recorded of Jesus’ time on earth?

Exodus 40: The Tabernacle and the Glory

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Exodus 40:33–Thus Moses finished the work.

Explanation: In this passage, the LORD, Yahweh, God of Israel speaks to Moses and tells him, “Arrange everything in the Tabernacle just as I have instructed.” Vss. 1-15. Then in vss. 16-33 Moses does what the LORD says. Vs. 33 says, “Thus Moses Finished the work.” The amount of detail that went into Exodus 25-31 where the Tabernacle instructions are given, and then from Exodus 35-39 where the instructions are carried out sounds redundant in that they are so similar. And once “Moses had finished the work” then the glory of God filled the Tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting.

Principalization: There is a pattern to the spiritual principle of life which seems evident in multiple Scriptures– a natural order in which God works.

  • In Genesis 2:7– When God made man, it said, he formed man out of the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And Man became a living soul.
  • In Genesis 7:1-15– Noah did everything according to what God commanded, And in vs. 16, Yahweh closed the door of the ark behind him.
  • In Genesis 14 and 15, it was after Abraham refused the reward of Sodom that God deepened His covenant relationship with him.
  • In Joshua 1-6, God’s directions were followed precisely, and God miraculously brought down the walls of Jericho.
  • In 1 Chronicles 28:11-19, the Temple instruction was passed from David to Solomon, and once the temple is completed in 2 Chronicles 7 the Glory of God comes down.

The order that seems to be shown in these passages is this:

  1. God gives a commandment.
  2. His servant obeys.
  3. His servant finishes the work.
  4. God’s glory and power show forth.

If there is any lack of even one of these first three elements the fourth cannot be. A complete obedience to the God who commands is the prerequisite for God’s glory and power showing forth.

Interrogation: In light of this pattern– First all on earth must be arranged; then Heaven comes down, the question I posit here is the same question Phineas’ wife asked in 1 Samuel 4:21 when she named her son after she heard the Ark of the Covenant was taken and Eli the High priest died:

Where is the glory?

In Exodus 40:38 the writer said, “Throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the LORD as on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel.”  If we are in a time of spiritual day, where is the cloud? If we are in a time of spiritual night, where is the fire?

If Jesus came to be Immanuel, God with us, and promised that he would never leave us or forsake us, where is the presence of God which shattered fortified walls? Where is the breath of life in the body of Christ? Where is the power from on high with which the first church was clothed in the upper room at Pentecost? Where are the tongues of flame that melted all languages barriers back into one people like before Babylon?

When I as a citizen of America attend the local assemblies here in my hometown of Ocala, FL my answer is this:

Wherever it is, it is not here.

My father once told me there is a very fine distinction between faith and presumption. I believe that in these passages I recognize that the difference between faith and presumption in the following stories:

In 1 Samuel, King Saul lost God’s precious anointing for Kingship, because he disobeyed God. Samuel rebuked him and said, “Has Yahweh as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of Yahweh? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For Rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.” Saul lacked faithful obedience.

In Isaiah 1, The Kingdom of Israel was mocking God by worshiping Him while living a disobedient life. God’s response was, “I hate your worship! Clean up yourselves!” and he gave them the key to their redemption in vs. 27. “Zion will be redeemed with Justice, and her repentant ones with righteousness.” What the people lacked in societal obedience, the Lord would restore them through their obedience.

In Matthew 9, Jesus ate with the tax collectors and sinners, and the Pharisees said, “How dare you?” But Jesus said, “Go learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.'” He then goes on to work Miraculous wonders in the community by raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead. What Jesus did have was the obedience, relationship, and love of His father.

From these examples, I can see that the difference between presumption and faith is something that combines righteousness, justice, love, and obedience together:

Humble devotion to God.

Exhortation: I weep with Paul as he recounts the scriptures, “There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.” Who has a heart after God? Who seeks Him, and Him alone? Who wishes only to know Him, yea still to be known by Him? Such a man will pursue The Lord with prayer. Such a man will refuse the bribe of the rich, such a man will despise public fame. Such a man will hate any allegiance or alliance with Evil. Such a man will often walk alone, yet not alone. Such a man will be poor in worldly esteem, but in Christ will know true contentment. God is looking for just one man who will seek Him. One man who will stay with Him. One man who will obey, who will follow, who will weep with Him, and rejoice with Him. One man who will do as he sees his father doing. One man. That’s all He needs. With such a man, the glory of God will rest in his heart, like a seed in the earth. With such a man, the power of God will work in his weakness. With such a man, the holy Spirit will smell of God on him, and he will be that aroma of life to life, and death to death.

Where is the glory? The hope of it is Christ in you.

 

The Parable of the Dandelion: The Gospel in the Old and New Testaments

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Old and New Testament

The Bible Gospel is like the dandelion.
In the Old Covenant the Gospel blossomed showing God’s goodness in His people
Whose radiance and scent were meant to draw all nations to God’s good salvation.
In the Gospels He shows His glory and Beloved He was questing for in Jesus Christ
Whose pedals stripped, and  whose seed came forth unto eternal life for the many
In the New Covenant the Gospel seeded, for the Holy Spirit to blow to all people
So that the whole world may be filled with the knowledge of the Glory of God.
It’s the same God, the same Gospel, and the same seeding, flowering plant.
This is merely a pot to help locate, cherish and nurture its growth.

A Vision about the Persecuted Church

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Yep. Sometimes I have visions. Acts 2:17 is my justification for it. This vision came to me August 11, 2014 in the back room of my Grandmother’s house right before I visited with Grandmother before bed. I’ve heard it said that visions are not always to be shared because sometimes it’s just for the one seeing it to know how to pray. But this is one God has permitted me to share. I do not claim this as orthodoxy. It is a manifestation of artistic reflection upon the nature of the world, the Church, and God. Ultimately, may God be found true and every man a liar.

In my availability
I sought the Lord about evil’s rise.
And at Grandmother’s before our talk.
I asked if We could take counsel.
He said “We can now.”
And I saw with other sight.

I saw the World before me like a globe.
And saw the Darkness spread abroad.
Then a light gathered together,
It was pressed, squeezed by the darkness around it.
I cried out as I understood,
“O Lord the Darkness proves Your glory
You are greater than all Your Word
And what is built upon Your word rebels against you
(It raises its fist)
It proves that You are what You proved to be when victorious
Even the darkness: the light has been tinted,
Even that dark is great, it is not as Great as You!”

In my sitting with Grandmother I considered this,
And drew on the orb, a circle of the light in the dark
The result was the dark inside it turned to light.
Like Joshua surrounding Jericho,
Like Gideon surrounding Midian.
Your glorious light filled the void
Because the Earth is filled with Your glory.
Like the world filled with magma.

I continued to draw circles, and light filled them.
But the darkness retaliated and I saw orbs darken.
Darkness continues to prove its power
The only answer is God Himself.
Not a church, not a word, not a book,
But God Himself.
And Jesus came so that we might take part in God Himself
As the Bride of Christ in communion with Him.
And I am joined with Him, and He entrusts Himself to me.
For we shall be Holy as He is holy.

O God, I am Yours. I look to You.
Let none of it be of me, but You all in me.
As you make yourself known
I worship and praise You.
For my heart is full of Your grace
And it resounds with Praise.

O God, deliver us!
Be our Deliverer
Show Yourself mighty
Show Yourself worthy.
Rescue Your beloved.
Redeem her, yea even in blood.
The blood she readily spills
For the World Jesus bleeds for today.

With humble awe, I marvel at this:
Jesus is still bleeding for the World.

Such is the love of husband and wife
They as one bear love for the same thing.
And the love of the World Jesus feels
Is the love of God and the Church for the World.

O Lord, my beloved are dying!