76. Shine and Be Gracious
Numbers 6:25 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.
Another promise assumed in the Aaronic Benediction is a shining face and graciousness. The Lord will make His face shine upon us. A shining face is a pleasant and beautiful sight to see. People with charm and a twinkle in their eye seem to shine and sparkle. Some faces light up a room. A shining face means that the shining person is pleased with us. And this is what the Lord promises. The Father states a couple of times that He is well pleased with His Son. And if we believe in the Son and identify with Him by faith, then God is well pleased with us. Nothing could please us more than to know that God the Father is well pleased with us. What could make us happier? We want, even need, our parents to be pleased with us. We long for our spouse to be pleased with us. We even want our children to be pleased with us. We please friends and neighbors so that they may be pleased with us.
But we desperately need God to be pleased with us, not just so that He would not be angry with us, but that He might be genuinely happy with us. Down deep, and in very truth, we desire and need God to be happy with us. If the Father is happy with me then I can be happy. The bold truth: God is always happy with us. The sad truth: we don’t always know that. For this reason the Lord wants to give us a blessing of a shining face. He shows us a face that expresses His inner feelings. Inwardly, He is kindly disposed toward us all the time, and sometimes He shows us his feelings outwardly in blessing. Can you see the twinkle in His eyes when the Father looks at you? This He does in the Benediction Blessing. Zephaniah 3:17: “He will rejoice over you with gladness.” Did you know you make God happy? That’s what the Blessing says.
The second part of this blessing is that the Lord will be gracious to us. He shows us His grace and favor. He blesses with grace. He is kind and good to us all the days of our lives. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me.” Graciousness is undeserved kindness and favor. We did nothing to deserve such a blessing, But because Jesus Christ earned grace for us, God bestows it extravagantly upon us. “Freely ye have received.” Freely means both “for free” and “in abundance.” There are times when we really miss and need such graciousness, kindness, blessing and favor from the Lord. We want to be touched with His Love. The Blessing gives such a touch. Receive the Blessing with a thankful heart.