"Light Reflection" -2

"God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause His face to shine upon us. Selah." (Psalms 67:1) It might not appear to be a blessing, but God has a way of turning things from bad to good, and from death to life; that is His specialty, and in case you have forgotten, Jesus suffered willingly, and of His own free will. It really makes quite a difference when you know the outcome of your circumstance; even though it might hurt a bit, it will all be over, sooner than you might think. So, here is the thing that makes the difference: Do you let His light shine in the midst of your suffering, or do you reflect the darkness of this world? Obviously we want to let His light shine; at least that might be our desire overall. But if we act as if we are upset with the way that we are being treated, then we are actually giving the devil what he wants, and taking the glory away from God. If you study the Book of Job, you discover that Job was not a perfect man, but he did believe in and trust in God; not only for himself, but he trusted in God for his children also. This is a very important quality to have when it comes to suffering through anything, because you are considering how you can intercede for others; and it is the quality that Job stopped holding to, as he sat in the street covered in ashes. It was the devils intent to get Job to curse God; and Job might not have literally cursed God, but he surely did not give Him the glory that He was due. Job's wife expressed what he was putting forth, as she said, "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die?" (Job 2:9) That was all Job had yet to do, because he had already surrendered God's integrity by giving into the destruction of the devil. We have got to come to terms with who God is, and what He is able to do, if not for us, then through us! If you want to see a really good movie that illustrates what I am trying to say, then you should watch "Brother's Keeper". There is a moment in the movie where one man says to the other, "Andrew brought his brother Peter to Jesus; how do you know whether or not you are your brother's Andrew?" The portion of this verse that says, "and cause His face to shine upon us", is one thing to this person, but is totally something else to another... "Therefore, since God in His mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don't try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this. If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants, for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let there be light in the darkness," has made this light shine in our hearts so we can know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shinning in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, and not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We are knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies." (2 Corinthians 4:1-10) NLT