Glory

When Scripture reveals that God is light, it speaks of an overwhelmingly beautiful light that shines forth in radiant goodness. A light that brings life and warmth and joy and abundance to all the places it touches. All flourish and abound under its rays.

What kind of love is this? What kind of God is this?  The kind who says, “Come.”   “Come to the wedding feast.”  So, come, hungry. Come, thirsty. He has prepared a table for you. And it is only here, with him, where your hunger is satisfied, and your cup overflows. 

There is more love, more life, more light in our God than there is hate, death, and darkness in us. Jesus is full of grace and truth, and he is everything we need.

If God is really so good, surely mission must be the easiest work in the world. Simply hold out Jesus in his gospel, and people should come flocking.

Those who bask in the sunshine of this loving and generous God are the happiest Christians and the happiest missionaries. Seeing in Jesus what our God is really like causes us to shine like him.

When we see the radiance of the sun, we meet warmth, and light, and life. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. A God who does not need to take from us, but loves to give and give himself.

The following are 30 quotes from Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves’ new book God Shines Forth: How the Nature of God Shapes and Drives the Mission of the Church

We are not just called to a glorious task but to a glorious Person. … What is beholding the glory of the Lord but believing the gospel? What is gazing on the face of Christ but receiving his benevolent smile and his gracious kindness?

The past twelve months, in a lot of ways, have been most discouraging. Perhaps you feel it too. Name-calling. Factions. Slander. The binding of consciences. Grumbling. Disunity. All of this may have you tempted to think that the church is just plain ugly. Providentially, Dustin Benge has penned his new work, The Loveliest Place: The Beauty and Glory of the Church, at this precise moment.

Ron Frost shows that being gripped by God is to embrace the radically upside-down nature of the gospel.