The Joy of Your Countenance

November 9

The impetuous Apostle, Peter, makes an amazing assertion in the first of his letters where he says, “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of faith, your salvation,“ I Peter 2:8, 9.

One cannot help but wonder if in Peter’s mind he goes on to say, ‘Unlike me. I knew Him, walked with Him, saw His miracles, yet had the audacity to debate Him (Matthew 16:22) on matters I did not understand, and He has loved and forgiven me. How blessed you are to have believed without the disappointment I’ve caused to our Lord.’

Yet, each of us could respond to Peter with our own tale of having let the Holy One down. Each of us could reiterate our failures to respond to the wooing of His Holy Spirit, to our moments of unresponsiveness to His Word as it tugged upon our heart, to our years, perhaps decades, of avoidance of assembling in His house simply because we knew we might be convicted of our need for a Savior if we were found there.

We, like the man who ran ahead of God during so much of his life, may say as he did in the Second Chapter of Acts, “…whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved…therefore…I will rest in hope…You have made known to me the way of life and have filled me with the joy of Your countenance…” Here Peter says as did David so many centuries before him, “…I sing for joy at the work of Your hands,” Psalm 92:4.