I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. – John 8.12
Anyone can to his own satisfaction confute the claim that Beauty makes, by saying, I do not see it; or the claim inherent in Goodness, by saying, I do not hear it; or the self-evidencing nature of Truth, by saying, I do not know it. But man doe not create goodness, or truth, or beauty; and to say that he cannot see them is to condemn himself, not them. So with LIGHT. – C.J. Wright
Ephraim shall say, “What have I to do anymore with idols?” I have heard and observed HIM. I am like a green cypress tree; your fruit is found in me.
Hosea 14.8
My morning routine usually consists of a zombie-like walk to the french press and to my bible for my daily reading. It is a precious time that my wife and I have and I think I will write a separate post about our specific yearly reading plan in the future. Usually after my time in the Word and prayer Ill take 15 minutes to read through my google reader, and this morning this video showed up through Abraham Piper’s 22 Words blog:
Belonging to a small but prestigious group of large men who easily cry, you can guess that while watching this video I came into tears, not necessarily because of the Titanic’s great loss, but the truly beautiful analogy that is represented in this man’s testimony. I ask you to watch it again but with the words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians alongside:
II Corinthians 2.14-17: Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of DEATH leading to DEATH, and to the other the aroma of LIFE leading to LIFE. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so man, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.
While watching the clip, for a moment I felt the world. An existence lived with the constant putrid miasma of death forever surrounding us because of our sin. A life without any hope to rest upon because of our offense to the living God, and the only destiny we can see ahead of us is the judgment of our omnipotent Creator.
But Christ who was willing to put on flesh, to dwell among us, with the one purpose of Redemption upon His mind, He opens up that fragrance to us and we experience that Hope that is impossible outside of a perfect sacrifice.
We don’t deserve to smell that fragrance, to breathe in that great HOPE that Christ has given us, but his rich Gospel is to be opened and to be smelled, and it is by His great grace that Christ would use us, such unworthy vials, to hold such a costly fragrance and to diffuse it to a dying world.
