Good Tuesday morning! Praise the Lord, most of the fireworks stuff should be finished for another year. Last night I watched out a window at the fireworks exploding in front of a thunder cloud to the north of town. Behind all the pretty bursts of the fireworks was God's own fireworks show. Lightning when viewed from a safe distance and shelter is wonderful to behold. God's fireworks are much more impressive than our little bursts of flame and smoke. Those little bursts of energy do have a certain fleeting beauty to them. In imitation of our Creator, we try to create lovely and beautiful things. If even those who do not believe in Christ try to create beauty in this world, is there something within us that is beautiful?
I cannot imagine the Lord Jesus dying for ugly. Of course, I speak not of any person's physical appearance or our media-influenced standards of what is attractive in a face or body. When you or I think of beauty our first glance might be toward a mirror where we accept or reject our own appearance as beautiful or not quite what we would like to see based upon standards made up by comparison with other persons. Jesus must have looked at some other standard when he died to save the beautiful creations he saw from the cross. Sin is ugly and all of us were born into that rebellious state of ugly sin. I simply cannot grasp that the Son of God would die to save that. However, if Jesus looked out from the cross and saw the beauty of redeemed and sanctified humans, his own creations as all that God would have us to be, then yes, obviously our Lord saw something worth saving.
If you don't feel beautiful this morning - and thanks to our sleep-deprived state from days of fireworks explosions, I'm guessing we will not this morning at least - you may want to ask Jesus to show you his view. At the moment, his view might not look too good either if we were to see our own sin stains. However, God's own view includes what each of us will become in Christ as we enter into his sanctification one glorious day. I believe that is a sight worth seeing, but we can't quite go there yet. Granted a view of our eternal state in Christ, each of us might become of no further use to God on this earth. Yes, you will one day be sanctified and made that beautiful: a reflection of the very image and glory of Christ. We might just have a little bit of trouble believing that right now, but trust in God to show you the way.
In my examination of myself, I am comforted to know that God does see a creation worth saving. How dreadful to be caught up in believing that I might be nothing more than some cosmic accident in a long chain of trail and error that came from some other accidental confluence of theoretical factors. How could such a thing be worth saving? On the other hand, to look to God as the beautiful and awesome and wonderful Creator of all of us, and to know by faith that I am saved in Christ, God's own Son, is a beautiful thing. I do believe that I will hold onto that bit of knowledge today and cherish the Savior who loves me.
God bless you on this new day in Christ,
Bucky
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