DAILY DEVOTIONAL – July 30, 2020

“Restoring A Masterpiece”

Prayer:  Our God and Creator, we thank you for this precious gift of life.  We admit that we have not lived our life or loved You as we should, but we take refuge in the saving work of Your Son our Lord Jesus and in His mighty name.  Bless our devotional time today.  Amen.

Scripture: Isaiah 1:18

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”

Devotion – “Restoring a Masterpiece”

My wife and I first met while earning our music performance degrees at Chapman University in Orange, California.  We have both enjoyed God’s blessings of being able to use our talents and passions both in careers as professional musicians and educators, as well as in worship of our Lord.  In our last couple years in school there, Chapman’s original schools of music, theatre, dance, and art were all in the process a transformation, coming together and laying the groundwork for what is now the Hall-Musco Conservatory of the Arts.  As this whole program was being developed, and in order to promote the new conservatory of the arts, the physical arts department started putting up more and more of what they called their “modern art” around campus.

Neither my wife or I have ever been big art enthusiasts, but I distinctly remember that my wife and I weren’t the only ones walking around Chapman’s campus wondering what it was we were missing.  I remember 2 pieces in particular that none of us ever really understood.  One display was two pieces of what appeared to be giant metal beams used for the structural skeleton of a building.  The only thing that made them different from a normal metal beam was that they were both bent on the ends, one painted orange and the other blue, and then bolted to a concrete wall.  The second most confounding piece of modern art was what I called the “coat-hanger-carousel”.  It was a whole bunch of long, shiny, vertical metal thin rods, mounted on a pedestal in descending sizes going around in a spiral.  That’s it.

You often hear it said that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  Candidly, I kind of always thought that was just an excuse for bad art, but there certainly is an element of truth to it.

The book of Genesis tells us that mankind, man and woman, were made in the image of God.  Of course, God is Spirit as Jesus taught us and not of physical form, so we were not made looking like God on the outside, but we were made in the image of who He is.  For example, we were made with the personhood of a God-given soul, we were created with self-awareness and consciousness, we were given a will rather than pure animal instinct, we were made freely in order to live a life freely with God and in worship of Him, we were made in love, for love, to be loved by God, and we were made to both experience His love and express our love for Him through relationships with one another, and to rule as ambassadors of God over the perfect creation entrusted to us, filling it with the life we even create ourselves having been made in the image of the Creator.  We were and are the crowning creature of God’s perfect creation.  The only creatures made in His image.

Well, I don’t know about you, but when I look back on my life, even just the past week, I certainly don’t see the beauty of a Thomas Kinkaid painting or a Michelangelo masterpiece, and certainly not the handiwork of God Himself.  When it comes to what God sees when He looks at us, beauty truly is, it has to be, in the eye of the beholder.  If we are honest with ourselves and each other, the best we can offer God or anyone as regards the beauty of our life, is a mangled mess of metal with a shabby coat of mismatched paint hastily applied.

Though God created us perfectly and beautifully, we have all sinned, we have all marred the masterpiece God created with our sinfulness; and we know it.  Our natural tendency, knowing in our hearts how we have so much more than simply blemished God’s handiwork, is to try and cover it up.  I say this to you admitting it myself first and foremost – we go to great lengths to try and repair and fix our imperfections, the blotches and stains of our sins that have tarnished the image of God we were created in.

The most recent statistics I could find showed the global art industry’s value to be estimated at just over 67 billion dollars back in 2018.  Meanwhile, the makeup and cosmetic industry in the US alone was valued at 89.5 billion dollars in that same year.

Chinese theologian Watchman Nee comments on this very effort we make to cover up our mistakes and blemishes when he says:

“Too many Christians today are caught acting as Christians.  The life of many Christians today is largely pretense.  They live a ‘spiritual life’, talk a ‘spiritual language’, adopt a ‘spiritual’ attitude, but they are doing the whole thing themselves.  It is the effort involved that should reveal to them that something is wrong.  They force themselves to refrain from doing this, from saying that, from eating the other, and how hard they find it all.  Nothing is more hurtful to the Christian life than acting, nothing so blessed as when our outward efforts cease and our attitudes become a spontaneous and unforced expression of the life within.” 

It’s true, the more we try and fix and cover up or make up for our sins, the further we damage what God has done and impede the work He wants to do.  We must remember that it is only the brush of the eternal Creator God that can restore us now in this life, and who has restored us eternally already in Christ.  The same Creator that paints the sunrise and sunset and who makes the northern lights dance in the sky,  has painted us snowy white, restoring the original image of God through the scarlet strokes of His Master brush that stripped the body of His Son Jesus on the cross.

Ephesians 2 says, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  And Philippians 1:6 assures us that, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”  Our efforts to restore ourselves only hinder God’s work.  Aspiring to please God is of course good, it is a sure sign we have been made a new creation, however, our job is not to try and fix everything but rather to stay near to God each day through repentance and discipleship in His Word.  You have probably heard it said before, and it’s true, “God is not looking for people who are able, but rather, for those who are available.”

We have been restored through the blood of Christ, and through faith in His name.  Take comfort in knowing that God has not only redeemed you and I, but has promised to work faithfully in and through us to bring His name glory through the working out of His masterpiece of salvation seen in the cross and empty tomb of our Lord Jesus.  Abide in Him, draw near each day and may you find peace in His handiwork.

Remember, God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow.  Amen.