In yesterday’s post “My Contentment Is Found In The Lord”, I said: If we can learn to find our satisfaction in Christ alone, we would withstand so much of what the enemy hurls our way. Yesterday I was pondering what contentment “looks” like. In a devotional yesterday and another one today, I found the answer: It is reflecting the love of God.

Grace Fox tells the story of Wanda, whose natural beauty astounded her. Not only is Wanda a natural beauty, she seems to glow from the inside out. Wanda told Grace how her husband had become a drug addict and gone to prison for five years. She raised their two children alone. Things looked hopeful on his release, but he relapsed and they lost their home. He left and began living on the street. Their marriage ended in divorce.

“My life hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would,” said Wanda, “but I’ve found strength and hope and joy in Jesus. Every morning, even when I was raising small kids alone, I met with Him at four o’clock. He reassured me of His love and held me together when my world was falling apart. If I glow, it’s because of time spent in His presence.”

Wanda reminded Grace of Moses. “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.” (Exodus 34:29-30)

In the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he compares two sources of “afterglow.” Moses met with God and reflected the fading glory of the law (3:7–11). Now, however, through faith in Christ we can meet with the same God and reflect His transforming Spirit. The difference is life-changing. As good as the law is, it condemns those who break it. As bad as we are, through the mercy and forgiveness of Christ we can have everlasting life.

The offer is to draw near to Jesus, who forgives our sin and transforms us by His Spirit as we draw close and spend time with Him. May others see the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control of Jesus’s Spirit glowing through us.

Xochitl Dixon had the privilege of serving as her mom’s caregiver during her treatments at a live-in cancer care center. Even on her hardest days, she read Scripture and prayed for others before getting out of bed.

She spent time with Jesus daily, expressing her faith through her dependence on God, her kind deeds, and her desire to encourage and pray for others. Never realizing how much her smiling face glowed with the Lord’s loving grace, she shared God’s love with the people around her until the day He called her home to heaven.

After Moses spent forty days and forty nights communing with God (Ex. 34:28), he descended Mount Sinai. He had no idea his intimate connection with the Lord actually changed his appearance (v. 29). But the Israelites could tell Moses had spoken with the Lord (vv. 30–32). He continued meeting with God and influencing the lives of those around him (vv. 33–35).

We might not be able to see how our experiences with God change us over time, and our transformation will definitely not be as physically apparent as Moses’s beaming face. But as we spend time with God and surrender our lives to Him more and more each day, we can reflect His love. God can draw others closer to Him as the evidence of His presence shows in and through us.

Spending time with Jesus makes a difference. What do people see when they look at me? Do they see worry on my face? Or do they see the peace that Jesus brings? I want people to see Jesus in my countenance.

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