Lake Ontario, Prince Edward County

“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.  Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”  Psalm 19:1-2

Our favorite place in The County, West Lake

Rodge loses his hat and Brent enjoys the moment!

This morning our family (minus Bronwyn!) enjoyed some brisk Canadian air and powerful scenery.  Remembering our grand Creator, who with the stroke of His hand painted the sky and set the earth in it’s place.  The grandeur of God comes into more accurate focus when we get out of our houses, out of our familiar places and consider the work of His hands!

Clark wanders around the massive slabs of rock looking for ice to smash.

We’ve been slowly adjusting to the Eastern Time Zone, we’re still all getting up at 5-6am, and zonked by 9pm.  It’s been a nice change.  Tomorrow at church we’ll be joining dozens of relatives for worship, then directly off to sitting on a float in the Santa Clause parade.  The weather is much like Ukraine, one more week then we’ll be off to Texas and shedding the fluffy winter coats.

The beautiful Deb enjoying her kids

What is the glory of God?  We hear this so much that I think it takes on various meanings.  I think God’s glory is the radiating nature of God that we experience.   God has revealed His glory through creation.  We learn about ‘who’ God is in part through the work of His hands.  How else do we experience the glory of God?  The person of Jesus Christ!  I think too often our theology gets in the way of God’s revealed nature in Christ.  When we think about “glory”, we often think about God’s power, His sovereignty and other attributes that distance the Creator from His creation.  While no-one doubts God is not made in man’s image, we shouldn’t deny the opposite.  God has poured out His nature in us, we enjoy the things that God made because we are made in His image.  We appreciate beauty, we despise injustice, we are moved by kindness and appalled by wicked acts.  We have been designed for God, to know Him in the beauty of genuine relationship.  We are given the mind of Christ to enjoy Him, and the Spirit of God to experience His very presence.

The next time you think about the glory of God, think about how God has chosen to reveal Himself to mankind.  A manger, the Son of God made flesh, walking among us, ministering to man and offering up His life for sin.  The next time you think about God’s glory, think about love, divine love exegeted in the person of Christ, the exact representation of His nature (Heb 1:3).  When we study Jesus, we study God’s revealed nature, the Word become flesh, beholding His glory (John 1:18).  Jesus was the demonstration of God for us, not Zeus, or some abstract, unknowable, superior being, but Jesus!

Sometimes when I listen to fellow believers, they sound more caught up in overly repeated quotes from popular authors than the person of Christ as revealed in our Bibles.   We relate to Jesus, because God wants and chose to be related to.  Jesus declared the Glory of God, the true nature and character of God.  Do you believe this?  It’s taken me years to wrap my tiny head around this simple fact.  It seems we want God to be different than the clearly revealed nature in Christ, we find it impossible to believe that God thinks and would act JUST LIKE CHRIST!  Once we accept that it was OUR GOD, IN CHRIST, reconciling the world to HIMSELF, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob incarnate, wow, the glory of God becomes amazing, because the nature of God is revealed..

He loves, He cares, He pursues, He is moved, He waits, He longs, He sees, He knows.  How can you be sure?  Study Jesus!  The next time you look up to the heavens, or gaze upon the setting sun, think about the God who has shown Himself not only all-powerful, but all loving.  Consider not only the hands that stretched the sky, but the hands that fed the poor and healed the sick.  He’s not left us abandoned in our sinful state, He’s entered our world and promises new life to all that will surrender.

I enjoyed creation today, it reminded me of the gracious King who became man.

Bruce & Deb