Hueytown Church of Christ

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January 25: Radiance

Ed Rangel
01/25/20 - Devotional

Series: Devotional

January 25: Radiance

Genesis 40:1–41:37; Hebrews 1–2, Ecclesiastes 9:11–18

When I was a boy, my dad was a welder for some oil companies.  One day he was teaching me how to weld and emphasized that I should not look directly at the welding light because I could be blinded.  But a welding flame is cool and dangerous. As my father was welding, I fixated on the light. I saw spots for the rest of the evening but didn’t tell anyone. I secretly feared that the radiance had actually blinded me.

The radiance of Christ is blinding—it was for Paul (Acts 9:1–31). In an epic hymn about the work of God’s Son throughout history, the author of Hebrews calls Jesus “the radiance of [God’s] glory and the representation of his essence, sustaining all things by the word of power” (Heb 1:3). It’s easy to wonder if sustainability is possible if the world will one day crumble and fall. But in Christ, there is hope.

Jesus is much like the sun. You don’t always notice its power, warmth, or even that it’s there. That is especially the case for the cloudy days. We forget that without the sun, there would be no life. It’s easy to forget that it is warming us even through rain and clouds.

The same is true for Jesus in our lives. It’s easy to forget Him until we desperately need Him. It’s easy to overlook the daily blessings, such as life itself, when searching for something extraordinary. But the extraordinary is always present. It’s here in the work of Christ, every day. His radiance shines upon us, even when we don’t realize it.

What blessings can you recognize today?