God is light! He just exudes! When He makes His presence known, there is no doubt about it, He is there. So naturally, when creating this world in which we live, He would create something that exemplifies His character. Of course, the heavens declare His glory, and all creation shows forth His majesty. But nothing shows that quite like the sun.
On the fourth day of creation, God called for there to be lights in the sky, with a specific purpose. These lights were to separate the day from the night. They were set up to be markers of measure. These lights measure seasons, the days, and the years. They were specifically created for the purpose of this earth, to give it light and life, to be a tool by which man would live.
Why is that? Because He said so! Genesis1:14-15 tells us, "And God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years. And let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.' And it was so." I just love that phraseology that it uses over and over. God said it, and it was so.
On this special day, He created the sun, a wonderful depiction of Himself to us in a wonderfully symbolic way. Just think about it. The sun was created to rule the day, to govern it. It was created to give light so that we can see, so that the plants can have the ever necessary process of photosynthesis, so that we can receive the Vitamin D that gives us strength. It was created to give us warmth.
I love how the earth orbits around the sun. Astronomers say that if it were just a little closer in its trajectory, all life would be fried, it would all die because of the heat. And if it were just a little farther away, the earth would freeze and be unable to sustain the life upon it.
How like God is that? Not only is He the Almighty Creator, but He is the King of Kings! He is the King of the Universe! He is ultimately in control. Though He allows free will, nothing passes through to us that hasn't received His permission first...because He wants to give us life and to give it more abundantly. That is not to say that He causes evil to happen, because that is out of His Character. But He does use all things together for our good, because He has a purpose for us, if we are willing to walk in it.
He gives us light so that we can see; in the right time, He opens our eyes to the beauty of all He has created, to all He is doing in our lives. He gives us what we need to be able to breathe. He is the very air we breathe. He feeds us and gives us strength with His light. When the rays emanating from Him come in contact with us, we are strengthened. The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Because of His love, He is moved with compassion for us, and if we follow Him, we will also take that warmth and have compassion on others.
He created us with will, the ability to choose to follow Him. When we decide to follow Him, to make Him the center of our universe so that our lives revolve around God, we are walking in His protection. He will not let us be burned. When we walk through the flames, He is with us and will not allow us to be burned. When the circumstances around us look bleak and cold, we can rest under the warmth of His wings and find comfort and refuge.
But there is more to it than that. We cannot gaze directly upon the sun without being affected by it. If we stare at it too long, our eyes will be blinded. We can feel its warmth, see the light it creates, and see around us because of its light, but we cannot look upon it directly. God once said to Moses that no man can see His face and live. He is simply too glorious, too pure, too holy. To approach Him with little regard to Who He Is, is to approach the sun without protective coating. Our God is a consuming fire, and He will burn away all that is not holy. But He is our shield, as well. Just as he hid Moses in the cleft of the rock as He passed by and covered Moses' face so that He could not look upon his face, He allowed Moses to see His back and to be awed by it. After being in God's presence for 40 days, Moses was forced to wear a veil over his face because the people said it was too bright, that it shined like the sun. That is the glory of God.
Revelation describes Jesus' face as shining like the sun. There's a reason for that. God created the sun to be a picture image of Himself, of His glory, so that in our humanity, we can get just a small taste of how holy, how great and powerful, how majestic is our God.
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