The Light of God in us

"We do the work of God, and His greatness backs us up."

Why is there evil? And why doesn’t God do something about it?

The same God who is longsuffering with you and me, with our mistakes, is longsuffering with the nations. We want His wide forgiveness for ourselves, but we want His axe to fall for others. The truth we seek on these questions comes from Calvary. On Calvary, God showed His great mercy and forgiveness. Jesus’ death, which was planned from before the foundation of the world, was finally fulfilled, and in its fulfillment, the enemy was defeated, and the authority to enforce it laid at our feet.

God is waiting on us. He desires to save that one person, so evil and lost in their sins. He desires to show them who He is. But the view He wants them to see of Him is one of mercy and not of judgment. He desires to forgive.

When God moved on the mountain amidst the people of Israel, even Moses quaked, because what the people saw was not the goodness of God which had delivered them and which covered them where they were in the wilderness, but terror and fear at the lightning and thunderings. They saw judgment and begged Moses not to make them see it again, and he feared for them, that what they saw was fearful. He wanted them to see God’s beauty, His abundance. Even when He came down, having received the stone tablets, His face shone with the glory of God, but they asked Him to cover it.

There is nothing to fear of God’s glory For He is a gentle, kind, generous God. He is love which gave of itself, rather than see us suffer in sickness as the result of sins. By Jesus’ stripes we are healed, but for this to become true, we must believe it. We must set our hearts toward it.

“Consider the significance of all that Christ has done: The all-powerful Creator permitted his creatures to torture and kill him rather than use his power against them! So don’t get tired, or give up, or lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:3, Remedy)

God does not cease to move because of our point-of-view. But our point-of-view will either reveal or obscure Him before us, within us.

Mercy and judgment are flip sides of the same coin. In 2 Corinthians 2:16, it says men either scent the grace of God in us, they smell His fragrance, His beauty, or the grace of God in us and the love of God coming from us, smell to them like death. How horrible to smell death where God is, to stand in the beauty of His holiness and prefer the darkness.

The light of God, the life of God in us, exposes the works of darkness. It is not that God will pull out His heavenly flashlight, but that His presence in people will cause darkness to flee. He is not the author of confusion nor the spirit of fear. This is definite and stated in the Word. So if there is confusion in us and fear upon us, we need to see the source and use our authority as God’s children and the power of Christ within us, which is the precious Holy Spirit, to rebuke it and command it to go.

We do the work of God, we walk in the words of God, despite how we feel and our varied emotions, and God’s strength in us, His greatness backs us up. He is our spine, as we’d say in modern vernacular. Courage comes from knowing who God is in us and to us, in knowing the will of God in our personal lives as well as in the nation.

A warrior only fights because He has the strength. Our strength is in the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. The Greater One resides within us, and what He has promised to us, a land of peace and joy and prosperity, is ours when we stand for it, in His authority, and refuse to back down.

Not in coarseness, nor in jesting, nor making a fool of ourselves and the lives of others (Ephesians 5:4). God never … NEVER … endorses jokes at one another’s expense, but He does create laughter, and were not it for His laughter within me, I would be lost today. However, nothing is funny about the misery of others, nor are we to make an example of them through their mistakes.

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” (Ephesians 5:11)

God has called men and women to be politicians in a culture of greed and arrogance. He has called some to be actors and entertainers amidst many lost in darkness. He has made some apostles, and prophets, and evangelists, television preachers, pastors of churches, and teachers of small groups. One calling is not lesser than another in importance to the Master, though some have more authority within the church structure.

No denomination is lesser than another and none should be the cruel butt of your joke. We are to encourage and lift each other up. There is only one body of Christ made of many members, made of individual people, and not separated doctrines duct taped together.

God loves all men, the saved and the unsaved. His love will rescue and redeem any who call on Him, regardless of where they stand, either at the height of popularity, or in the depths of prison and despair.

His mercy is spread through us. We are the hand of God extended. We push back darkness with our acts of mercy, as Paul said, to orphans and widows, but also to the homeless and those lost on the streets, in fact, everywhere where influence festers on top of mountains. At the crest of them, where the power is held, God has those placed there to give influence, to speak His Words and change the atmosphere.

We look for an axe. We should extend a Shepherd’s staff, the one which comforts us in the valley of despair, and shine the light of Jesus into the eyes of others. From His compassion in us, we shine mercy and the love of God into the lives of others, love so immense, it sent Him to earth from heaven’s majesty to die a cruel death and rescue man.

Photo by samsommer on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com