Endured as seeing him who is invisible...

^" By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible."  Hebrews 11:27 (ESV)


I read this verse this morning not knowing that I would see some beautiful sunbeams this morning on a walk.

I saw a "raven" type bird in the beam.
I recalled reading one time something from John Piper about a "sunbeam" being a glimpse of the source of the beam.

“The sunbeams of blessing in our lives are bright in and of themselves. They also give light to the ground where we walk. But there is a higher purpose for these blessings." (John Piper)

I thought raven, new morning, new mercies, fog lifting after the rain

John Piper reminds us of the illustration from C. S. Lewis, “‘I was standing today in the dark tool shed. The sun was shining outside, and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

“‘Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no tool shed, and above all no beam. Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside, and beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.’

“The sunbeams of blessing in our lives are bright in and of themselves. They also give light to the ground where we walk. But there is a higher purpose for these blessings. God means for us to do more than stand outside them and admire them for what they are. Even more he means for us to walk into them and see the sun from which they come. If the beams are beautiful, the sun is even more beautiful. God’s aim is not that we merely admire his gifts, but, even more, his glory.

“Now the point is that the glory of Christ, manifest especially in his death and resurrection, is the glory above and behind every blessing we enjoy. He purchased everything that is good for us. His glory is where the quest of our affections must end. Everything else is a pointer–a parable of this beauty. When our hearts run back up along the beam of blessing to the source in the blazing glory of the cross, then the worldliness of the blessing is dead, and Christ crucified is everything.

“Therefore every enjoyment in this life and the next that is not idolatry is a tribute to the infinite value of the cross of Christ–the burning center of the glory of God. And thus a cross-centered, cross-exalting, cross-saturated life is a God-glorifying life–the onlyGod-glorifying life. All others are wasted.”

These paragraphs are from Piper’s book, Don’t Waste Your Life, Crossway (2003). When we center our attention on the gifts God gives, and not on God who is the giver of the gifts, we demean both the gifts and the giver. The Psalmist understood this. “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8) And again in Psalm 103, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits….”





I then thought about this "raven: again and recalled a writing by Charles Spurgeon

“The glory of the Gospel is not that it paints ravens white, and whitewashes blackbirds, but that it turns them into doves. It is the glory of our religion not that it makes a man seem what he is not, but that it makes him something else. It takes the raven and turns him into a dove; his ravenish heart becomes a dove's heart. It is not the feathers that are changed, but the man himself. Glorious Gospel…
… trophies of regenerating grace, new creatures in Christ Jesus.” CHS- Sermon
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0063.htm

I was thankful that God is so kind to show us a glimpse of his nature in Heb 11:27 in that He gave Moses faith and strength to endure and walk in the plan created for him before he was born... and he did..

for he endured as seeing him who is invisible."