I mean, really, who wants to say "Hi" to the back of someone's head?
And when talking about God – how much we need to see His face. The Bible is full of verses about God’s face. Some are expressions of people begging to see His face:
- I Chronicles 16:11 “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.”
- Psalm 4:6 “…Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.”
- Psalm 27:8 “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
- Psalm 31:16 “Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.”
- Psalm 80:3 “Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.” (80:7, 80:19)
- Psalm 119:135 “Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your decrees.”
Some verses are records of what happens when God turned His face away:
- Deuteronomy 31:17 “On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed…”
- Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”
- Ezekiel 15:7 “I will set my face against them. Although they have come out of the fire, the fire will yet consume them. And when I set my face against them, you will know that I am the LORD.”
- I Peter 3:12 “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
And some verses show us the benefit of seeking after His face:
- Psalm 17:15 “And I – in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.”
- Psalm 34:5 “Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.”
“It is a dangerous thing to come before the seat of power without being invited.”
He was trying to make us relook at a very familiar passage, Hebrews 4:16. In it we are told to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” That is not how most people approach royalty. We can even see how dangerous it normally is through stories found in Esther 4 (where she could die if she was not invited to approach the throne) and then Leviticus 10 (where two men were killed for not following God’s commands in approaching Him).
And yet….we are told to approach God's throne with confidence!
In doing so, we are seeking His face.
James ended his message by asking the question:
“What kind of insult is it to be invited by the King into His throne room and not bother to show up?”
Ooh. How often do I honestly approach His throne of grace and strive to seek His face?
So the question came up: WHOSE FACE DO I SEEK? God's? My own (in the mirror)? Others?
Throughout the week, I stumbled on other verses referring to God’s face (Jeremiah 18:17), but it wasn’t just God’s face that was brought to my attention this week. It was also… Facebook.
A few days ago, I saw a poem written & performed by Marshall Soulful Jones. The words were pretty thought-provoking:
“It used to be hard to connect when friends form cliques but it’s even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends…I face facebook more than books face me hoping to book face the faces…I-pod, I-mac, I-phone, I-chat…I can do all of these things without making eye-contact.”
And if that wasn’t enough to get my thoughts going, I then got an email from a friend yesterday, with a link to his blog called To Facebook or Not (http://tofacebookornot.blogspot.com/). And that made me think a lot, too.
Really – Facebook is an amazing technology that can connect me with friends all over the world. But I have recently found that I am wasting and frittering time away on Facebook – learning about friends, and never truly talking with them.
Which brought me back to thoughts about Christ. Am I only learning about Christ? Do I truly talk with Him? Do I come before his throne of grace? Do I make time for truly seeking His face?
Exodus 33:11 tells us that “The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend…” Yes, please!
Last night, I decided to take the challenge and turn off Facebook for a month. It's not that I am saying I'd never turn it on again. But I think I need some time to focus on important things - not looking at pictures of people I haven't seen in 5 years.
And this morning…guess what thoughts kept coming up at church? Thoughts of God’s worthiness and seeking His face.
- Song of Solomon 5:10-16 “…He is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this is my friend…”
- II Corinthians 4:6 “For God, who said, ‘ Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
- We ended with a beautiful song called “Immanuel’s Land”. The last verse says:
“The bride eyes not her garment, But her dear Bridegroom’s face
I will not gaze at glory, But on my King of grace
Not at the crown He giveth, But on His pierced hand
The Lamb is all the glory Of Immanuel’s land.”
The face of Christ.
That is worth gazing at.
And my hope is that in this next month, with time freed from frittering on Facebook – I will spend some more time at Jesus’ feet, gazing up at His face, and learning how to better live like Him!
(….and spending some quality time with real, live people friends...not the facebook variety :))
No comments:
Post a Comment