Daily Devotion

Transparency

 

O LORD of hosts, who tests the righteous, who sees the heart and the mind, let me see your vengeance upon them, for to you have I committed my cause.  Jeremiah 20:12

 

Growing up, when I was in my elementary through high school grades, my teachers used transparencies for our notes and sometimes quizzes.  They would prepare the notes for the class and put them up on the screen for all to see.  This was before school got all high-tech with the smart boards, which I did not see until college. 

 

Much like those transparencies, with the notes on them that could be wiped off with water, but dried on over time is our mind and heart.  The notes we have taken from the past on how to deal with people often cloud our judgment, and can prevent us from receiving a blessing or blessing someone else.  Our pain has become smudged with bitterness and we refuse to wipe it away.  Thank God for His healing waters, His Word, and His love that can erase anything!  Just like God casts our sins away forever, we can cast away unforgiveness, painful memories, guilt or shame.  We can make the choice to walk with God so that He can teach us to forgive...so that like in the verse above He can impact vengeance.  Once we give things over to Him, we are no longer stained by our hatred, we are washed and renewed--transparent in His love.  Whenever it was my turn to write a problem, I always hoped to get the new transparencies that were untarnished and clear...not weathered with age by time.  Don't let your hurt and pain leave you tarnished or worse yet, permanently scarred.  God sees through us into every nook and cranny, let His love heal you and then shine through to others.

 

"So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord--who is the Spirit--makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."  2 Corinthians 3:18