Tarshish or Nineveh?

This is another excerpt from Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon written over a hundred years ago in 1915, yet still ringing true today. This portion reflects on John 1:6 about John the Baptist, tying it in to the story of Jonah.

~~~

And so ends John's first great paragraph. Away back in the beginning God revealed Himself in making a home for man, and in bringing the man, made in His own image, to his home. And then when the damp unwholesome darkness came stealing in swamping the home and man He came Himself, flooding in the soft clear pure light of His presence, to free man from the darkness and woo him out into the light.

Then John goes on into his second paragraph. "There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John." Why? Because man was in the dark. He sent a man to help a man. He used a man to reach a man. He always does. 

Even when He would redeem a world He came as a Man, one of ourselves. He touches men through men. The pathway of His helping feet is always a common human pathway. And, will you mark keenly that the highest level any life ever reaches, or can reach, is this: to be a pathway for the feet of a wooing, winning God. 

And this is still true. It is meant to be true today that there came a man, sent from God, whose name is—[your name]. You put in your own name in that sentence, then you get God's plan for you. For as surely as this particular John of the desert and of the plain living, and the burning speech, was sent by God, so surely is every man of us a man sent by God on some particular errand. And the greatest achievement of life is to find and fit into the plan of God for one's life. This is the only great thing one can do. Anything else is merely labelled "great." And that label washes off. This is the one thing worth while. 

The bother is we don't always get the verbs, the action words, of that sentence straight. John was a man sent from God. And he came. All men are sent. But they don't all come, some go; go their own way. 

There was a man sent from God whose name was Jonah. But he didn't come. He went. He was sent to Ninevah on the extreme east. He went towards Tarshish on the extreme west; just the opposite direction. Every man is headed either for Ninevah or Tarshish, God's way or his own. Which way are you headed? 

John was sent and he came. You and I are sent. Are we coming or going? Coming God's way? Or going our own? 

Let The Light Shine

This is an excerpt from Quiet Talks on John's Gospel by Samuel Dickey Gordon. It was written over a hundred years ago in 1915, but the truth still rings true, and this portion reflecting on John 1:4-5 is an encouragement to me. 

~~~

The great simple plan of God is this: let the light shine. The darkness flees like a whipped cur, tail tightly curled down and in, before the real thing of light. 

Let me ask you a question. Is it a bit dark down where you live? Morally dark? Spiritually? If it be a bit dark does it not suggest that the light has not been shining as it was meant to? For where the light shines the darkness goes. 

For, you see, this is still God's plan for treating darkness. It is meant to be true to-day of each of us,—"the light shineth in the darkness." Of course, we are not the light. He is the Light. But we are the light-holders. I carry the Light of the world around inside of me. And so do you, if you do. It is not because of "me", of course, but because of the great patience and faithfulness of Him who is the Light. A very rickety cheap lantern may carry a clear light, and the man in the ditch find good footing in the road again. 

You and I are meant to be the human lanterns carrying the Light, and letting it shine cleary fully out. And you know when some one else is providing the light the chief thing about the lantern is that the glass of the lantern be kept clean and clear so the light within can get freely out. The great thing is that we shall live clean transparent lives so the Light within may shine clearly out. We may live unselfish clean Christly lives, by His great grace. And through that kind of lives, the Light itself shines out, and shines out most, and most clearly.

Sometimes the glass of this human lantern gets smoky, badly smoked. And sometimes it even gets cobwebby, rather thickly covered up. But look! There's the crowd in the road in the dark, struggling, jostling, stumbling, and falling into the ditch at the side of the road, ditched and badly mired, because the light hasn't gotten to them. The Light's there. It's burning itself out in passionate eagerness to help. But the human lanterns are in bad shape. 

Our Lord's great plan, bearing the stamp of its divinity in its sheer human simplicity, is this: we who know Jesus are to live Him. We're to let the whole of a Jesus, crucified, risen, living, shine out of the whole of our lives. 

Is it a bit dark down where you are? Let the Light shine. Let the clear sweet steady Jesus-light shine out through your true clean quiet Jesus-swayed and Jesus-controlled life. Then the darkness must go. It can't stand the Light. It can't withstand the purity and insistence of its clear steady shining. 

And the darkness will go: slowly, reluctantly, angrily, doggedly, making hideous growling noises sometimes, raising the dust sometimes, but it will go. It must go before the Light. The Light's resistless. This is our Lord's wondrous plan through His own, and His irresistible plan for the crowd, and His plan against the prince of darkness. 

As For You

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. 

As for you, lift up your staff and reach out with your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land. 

And as for Me, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them; and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 

Then the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I am honored through Pharaoh, through his chariots, and through his horsemen.”

Exodus 14:15-18

It always amazes me that God chooses to partner with us, and involve us in what He is doing on this earth. He didn't need Moses' staff and reached out hand to be able to divide the sea -- He was more than capable of carrying out this incredible salvation by Himself. Yet He brought Moses into the story, called him to step out in faith and obedience and be a part of the rescue story. 

He has a role for each of us to play. Fear not, God will do all the heavy lifting of parting the seas. But He has an ask of you: for you, an image bearer of His, to be His physical hands and feet in the world as He carries out His perfect plan. 

Without a doubt (and regardless of your obedience) God will very capably carry out His 'as for Me' portion of the plan, and the honour and glory will be His. The question today is: What will you do with the 'as for you' that God has assigned you? 

Lunar Eclipse

Tonight as I sat watching the lunar eclipse, I was struck once again with the very simple picture of what happens when we allow the world to come between us and our source of Light. We become a dull red version of ourselves, offering no light to the places and situations around us. We lose our reflection of who He is, now just a dark object floating through life. 

Clear the way for the Lord to shine through in your life. Move the things that need to be moved -- the things that are blocking and throwing shadows over your witness. Position yourself in the best possible place to reflect the glory of Christ to the world around you. 

A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord;

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.

For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Isaiah 40:3-8