“The Joy Of Nakedness” – How’s THAT for a blog title?
God is so amazing – everywhere, all the time, always God, knowing it all, seeing it all.
It makes great sense that openness is part of His creation plan, and when this whole place gets wrapped up, it will once more be a situation of complete openness.
Scriptures are (NKJV)
Luke 8:17
17 “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.
Nothing.
It will all come out in the wash. All will be exposed. This should be a great relief to those who, by the grace of God, walk in integrity and often do things that cost them, because they love God and they love His righteousness.
There will surely be a reward for the righteous, just as there will surely be a reward for the wicked. This should motivate us, excite us, challenge us – in life, in our spiritual walk, in business, in all relationships.
Our vindication ought to come from this place of naked honesty before our Lord:
Ps 26:1-2
1 Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity. I have also trusted in the LORD; I shall not slip.
2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my mind and my heart.
That is the psalmist crying out for a holy audit. Accountability partners and groups are swell. Accountability to the Lord, praying to invite His examination light, is key. We are not walking this walk on a cultural level. There is no sliding scale for holiness. We are accountable to the Lord, His standards, and His Word, which endures forever.
God knowing it all, these following verses sometimes can seem ludicrous. Are you kidding me? God walks in HIS garden, among all the trees HE created, and He asks Adam (who He created) where Adam is?
Gen 3:8-10
8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
That “where are you” was not a questions. It was an invitation, by God, for Adam to come clean.
Likewise, the Lord appears to Moses, to call him to service, and while Moses is speculating about the impossibility of the situation and his unlikely qualifications for the call, God asks Moses what Moses has in his hand. Are you kidding? Didn’t God know what was in Moses’ hand? I vote yes.
Exod 4:1-3
1 Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The LORD has not appeared to you.'”
2 So the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A rod.”
3 And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.
Moses fled from his own potential. O God let us not flee from ours.
What a huge relief – God knowing all, always. We are invited to come clean, walk clean, be clean. Naked in the sight of God, and OK with that nakedness. Not ashamed of our humanity, or our foibles, or even our sin. The only sin God really can’t stand in us is unconfessed sin. That remains unforgiven sin.
The shakier this world becomes (as our Lord shakes it as promised – Haggai 2:6 and 7 and Hebrews 12:26) the more critical it becomes that we have no secrets from God. We’d do well to realize that we really can’t possibly have any secrets from God – but our enemy would want to encourage that kind of misconception and darkness – to get us behind a tree as our great God walks through the garden of our lives.
Our integrity, by His grace, will preserve us.
It was just prior to the siege of Jerusalem. The Israelites had refused and rejected the righteous correction of their God, the One with whom they had made a covenant. He had warned them time and again, and they had flipped Him off, time and again. He would be whistling for the fly (Isa 7:17-18), calling in a cruel enemy nation to besiege, conquer and enslave them. They would be resorting even to cannibalism (Jer 19:9, Lam 4:10).
And who would be safe?
Isa 33:14-16
14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
15 He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil:
16 He will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure.
Fully clothed in the righteousness of God is being naked before God. Go figure.
Ps 26 (again)
2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my mind and my heart.
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