Radiant for the Lord

“I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed…The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” –Psalm 34:4-5, 7-8. “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.” –Exodus 34:29 (ESV).

Moses had very special assignments from God: to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage, to lead them to the Promised Land of Canaan, and then to receive from God Himself on that special assignment atop Mount Sinai the law of God given for the people, “the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” When Moses descended to the plains after his forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai, his face was all aglow. He was radiant with the Lord’s glory, “his face was shining” so much so that we are told in Exodus 34:33-36 that Moses put a veil over his illumined face while he was among the people, but removed it when he spoke with the Lord.

None of us can hope to have a mountain-top experience as unique and important as Moses had with the Lord. That was God’s work for Moses, and he did it well, except when he became angry upon seeing the people’s golden calf following his receipt of the law on tablets of stone. Moses threw the tablets down and broke them in his anger. That necessitated his going up Mount Sinai a second time under God’s direction, and writing again the commandments of God on tablets of stone (see Exodus 34). Following this second giving of the law, Moses’ face was radiant as he came back among the people. That time, they had not fashioned a golden calf during his forty days on Mt. Sinai.

It was January, two years ago, that I accessed a facebook message from a dear young friend who is a missionary. At that time she and her husband were working in Barbados. Since then they have been transferred to Panama. She had read the day she wrote the words from Psalm 34:5: “Those who look to Him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.” This fine Christian young woman stated that her resolution for the New Year was to “be radiant for the Lord.” As I thought about her resolution, I considered that keeping that goal would not be hard for her, because, even since her teenage years when she was one of the youth group members I had the privilege of leading, she had been radiant, her face reflecting the peace, love and joy of the Lord. As she grew into adulthood, become a wife, mother, missionary, she still has that special glow and radiance that reflects the claim of God on her life. How does your face look? It may be like mine, wrinkled with some of the ravages of living a long time. But we can, like Moses and like my missionary friend, be radiant for the Lord. “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance” (Proverbs 15:13a). Let us beware that our countenance does not “witness against us” because “their (our) tongue and their (our) doings are against the lord to, provoke the eyes of His glory” as we are told in Isaiah 3:8b-9. If we truly seek the Lord and believe that he encompasses us with angels to assist us in the work He has for us, as today’s scripture indicates, then our countenance can radiate the presence and power of the Lord. “Taste and see that the lORD is good!” We will even look different with the confidence He gives us. Allow the Lord’s radiance to shine through you!