Seek His face

Last week in the hospital, I had several vivid dreams. One involved the Holy Spirit and the devil fighting over me. When I woke up, I felt that this was a war for my life. It was intense.

Another intense dream had me at a church meeting. Two theologians were bantering back and forth over their opposing views of a certain doctrine. At least two people in the room were asleep. Some were ill. Others were nattering about smaller matters. In this dream, I became frustrated with the debate after hearing one of the theologians say that we needed to be united, and unity required thinking the same way.

Really? This statement put me in ‘sermon’ mode! In the dream, I told the two theologians that unity was not about thinking the same, but about loving one another. Of course, the dream was longer than this summary, but I woke up surprised at its events.

In today’s devotional, Tozer says that apart from Christ and the apostles probably no group of believers in history has ever held the truth in total purity. As he quotes, “the truth is so vast and mighty that no one is capable of taking it all in, and that it requires the whole company of ransomed souls properly to reflect the whole body of revealed truth.”

This does not mean that God is the author of our confusion. Rather, our minds and hearts are messed up because of sin and we cannot understand clearly. The goal is to receive the truth without too much interference, yet as sinners, interference happens. We all have ‘holes’ in our thinking and need each other to properly understand God, and even then, we fall short!

Tozer’s last statement says what I ‘preached’ in my dream — it is not union God wants, but unity, and that is a matter of life and love.

How do we get that kind of love? Yesterday’s verses tell how Jesus told His disciples to love Him and that He would send them the Holy Spirit. This strongly suggests that for us to love Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit. Obviously, to love one another requires the same supernatural power.

In my thinking, if I am going to love God’s people and be part of that unity that is not about thinking alike, but about love, then I need to seek the continual help of the Helper that Jesus sent. This idea of seeking the help of God brings me to a verse that I selected as my ‘verse of the year’ a few years back — only today I discover something new about this verse. It says:

You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.” (Psalm 27:8)

The new discovery is that the word ‘seek’ that begins this verse is plural. That is, God says, “Seek my face” to all His people, not merely the psalmist, and not just to me. The context suggests it is a command to an individual, but the word form is plural!

I’m letting the implications wash over me. If all of God’s people are seeking the face of God, then are we not far more apt to have that loving unity that He desires?

Think of a classroom of students all seeking the face (desiring to know and please) the teacher. Are they more apt to get along with each other? Of course. Or consider a family of children seeking the face of their mother. Instead of looking at their own needs or being concerned about their own plans, they are in harmony because they have a common focus.

^^^^^^^

Dear Jesus, in context, this verse seems to speak to me as an individual. I’m to seek Your face. Yet a closer look reveals that You have a far greater desire than individuals seeking You; You want all of us to seek You, desire You, reach out to You. In doing this, we draw closer to You and therefore closer to one another. To make this very practical, when I talk with Your people, it is always good to encourage them to be looking for You, seeking You. Nothing else is as important to unity as our desire for You!