Afire with God

Some great excerpts from an essay written by John Macbeath, which I found in What a Friend We Have In Jesus.

The sweet singers of Israel saw God in everything....to them the earth was crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God. "Study nature," urged Kingsley, "do not study nature for its own sake, but as the countenance of God. Try to extract every line of beauty, every association, every moral reflection, every inexpressible feeling from it. Adore God!"

It would be impossible for us to tell how much of the merit we find in nature is to be attributed to the knowledge of life and of God which we have derived from Jesus Christ. An honest investigation would prove that appart from the teaching of Christ and His influence on human thought, we should find nature to be a very inadequate instructor. Nature, without Christ, does not offer intelligent and intimate communion with the Unseen. No one can say that he is acquainted with an artist because he admires the artist's workmanship....A whole world of progress lies between these two points of expression, "The heavens declare the glory of God," and "The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The one indicates greatness, the other expresses grace. The first exhibits power, the second presents personality. The former is material, the latter is spiritual....

There is no remoteness in God. He enjoys the world down to the last rose of summer or the last swallow in flight, and above all He loves man. The Old Testament celebrates the glory of creation when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. The New Testament heralds the glory of God's redemption, "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." That is the music of an infinitely mightier and sweeter song. --The Face of Christ (London: Marshall Morgan and Scott, 1935), What a Friend We Have in Jesus, (Gospel Folio Press, 2003)

A view of the fading sunset through some of the icicles that adorn our eaves.