Devotional Guide
For the week of November 16, 2003
GETTING THROUGH
How to be bereft of God's glory
To Read: Jonah 1-4
To Know:
"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich,
yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become
rich." (2 Cor. 8:9)
In the USA money talks. In England it is a person's title that opens doors.
The retired head of Johnson and Johnson's European Division belonged to the
Royal Barnton Golf Club in Edinburgh. Royal was added to the name of golf
clubs after a member of the royal family played the course. This retired
gentleman and I played many rounds of golf together in 1976. One day I asked
my new friend if he had played Muirfield, the course that Jack Nicklaus
considered the world's best. Muirfield lies along the shore of the Firth of
Forth, twenty miles east of Edinburgh, and gave Nicklaus the name he called
his course in Columbus, Ohio. "No," he said, "I've never been able to get on
that course." Astonished, I asked him, "Why not?" By then I had played the
course at least ten times. He explained that my title, Reverend, explained
why I was welcomed on the course. His money meant nothing, but my title
meant everything.
Paul says of Jesus Christ that he was rich. Our Lord was not rich in money;
he was rich in glory. He radiated God. The author of Hebrews writes, "He
reflects the glory of God..." (1:3) Each Christmas we sing, "Mild he lays
his glory by, born that man no more may die." True riches are uninterrupted
fellowship with God. When Christ became poor he suffered broken fellowship
on the cross. The cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken
me?" signaled our salvation. We, who are bereft of God's glory by nature,
receive glory of the Son of God by faith.
11183$-11183
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