The Beauty of Christ

Pastor Ron Gray

"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful words." Hebrews 1:3

As I sit to write this instalment of To the Pointe, I am three days back from a much needed and greatly appreciated sabbatical. To the Board of Elders and to the people of RockPointe, Maria and I want to say, “Thank you for the opportunity to step away and experience the restoring gift of time.”

In the four months of our sabbatical, Maria and I enjoyed time with each other and wonderful memory making adventures with our family. We had time to give important matters thought that was not cluttered or shaped by pressing things. We prayed together and looked ahead to the next four years and beyond. I was restored by working with my hands. We spent a great deal of time with God. Coming from those times with God I wrote a lot, but not too much, about one hundred and forty journal pages by hand. I read. Likely too much.

Our souls are restored. It is good to be back.

At the outset of the four months away it was my intention to delve deeply into the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. Beginning with what Christ was up to before his incarnation, I moved through his earthly ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, and his immanent return. (Truth be told, I essentially got as far as Christ’s crucifixion with the odd foray beyond that.) One of the wonderful things about a sabbatical is that it gave me the opportunity to do this at a slower pace and without the expectation of producing something as a result of what I saw and experienced. As it always does, time with God accomplished a great deal within me. I saw and experienced in a new way something I have known all along:

Jesus is more beautiful, lovelier, and more immense that I ever could imagine or capture.

I feel like one who has picked up a familiar diamond and upon examining it has seen new facets that caught the eye of my heart in ways that took my breath away. Jesus Christ is beautiful! I’m sure you will hear me mention bits and pieces of what I have experienced as the days, months, and years go by. That is just the way it is when we encounter Jesus. We are changed. How we think, how we act, our very nature is transformed by him.

I would love to sit with you and bore you with a report of all the things I read and give you an account of all the gracious tangents God took me on, however, this five hundred word piece would soon become a five thousand word sermon, or a fifty thousand word thesis. As I said above, over time you will hear it bit by bit. Today, it will need to suffice for me to encourage you to look at Jesus more closely. He is more beautiful than our finite minds can register, yet deep down, in the places of our heart where the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to know things in a different way, we begin to see how wonderful he is.

Look to him and you will be changed.

"We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 1 John 3:2