Faith in what I cannot see…

 

Every now and then God shows answers to prayer. Friends who were ill and we prayed for healing and it happened. Or a prayer for finances worked out. Or prayers for changed lives happened. Even my prayers for parking places have put me in a busy lot right in front of the store door. But these are exceptions not the norm.

Faith is the assurance of things not seen. When I pray for an unnamed pastor in a unnamed country using an app that receives such requests, I have no idea what God does in answer to that prayer. It could be yes, no, or wait. When I pray for politicians, or leaders in other realms, I may see things happen, but not be certain that is the answer to my prayer. God’s ways are mysterious.

Last week, I had a whim to look at a show home in another part of the city, wound up having lunch in a place we’d never visited, read a news story in that restaurant, looked it up on YouTube when we got home, sent the link to a young friend and he later emailed me to say that changed the direction of his life. When I told a Christian friend about this chain of events, she replied how often she longed to see the results of her actions, and her prayers.

However, we agree that faith is about trusting the Lord, whether we can see what He is doing or not. Today’s reading says our desire is not about seeing what the Lord does but about seeing Him.

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42:1–2)
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)

Piper writes, “Nearness to God himself is the only all-satisfying experience of the universe” and that the psalmist wants to see the power and glory of God. Can that happen without seeing answers to all my prayers? Yes, it can. There are days when I am overwhelmed by simply reading His Word and realizing afresh the wonder of who He is and the nearness of His presence.

PRAY: Jesus, I desire that my mind is on You whenever it is free from the necessities of thought, that my emotions are elevated as I sense Your nearness and Your love, and that my will is fixed on Your will being done — whether I can see it happening or not. Based on the reality of faith, I can know that You are at work concerning all things that concern me because You say that You are in my life whether I can see it or not. Maybe eternity will reveal what is unseen or not, yet it will let me see You face to face, and that will be enough.

Seeing Jesus

Exodus 33; Proverbs 9; John 12; Ephesians 2

John’s gospel is precious to me because it reveals Jesus as the Word made flesh, God coming to us as a man. John 1:14 says that He “dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

Exodus seems to be a contradiction to John’s statement; it says that seeing God is deadly . . .

Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:18–23)

However, earlier Moses and others DID see God.

Moses, Aaron, his sons and seventy of the elders went up a mountain “and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God and ate and drank.” (Exodus 24:10–11)

The OT describes others who saw God including Jacob, Gideon, Manoah and his wife who were parents of Sampson. How can this be? Could this be referring to ‘a way of seeing’ rather than the idea of mere eyes being able to see? John 12 tells of some who wanted to ‘see’ Jesus. For them, seeing meant ‘having a visit’ with Him, but did they know what they were asking?

Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” (John 12:20–21)

What does it mean to ‘see’ Jesus? Lots of people did view Him with their eyes, but He talked about a greater ‘seeing’ that changed the lives of those who saw Him that way . . .

And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. (John 12:44–46)

Jesus uses a different word for ‘see’ that is more about a closer look than the Greeks asked for. My Bible dictionaries indicate that this is more challenging to describe. It is like gazing at something that is so startling that the viewer sees nothing else. From my study and reading, looking at Jesus this way is about seeing who He really is and being transformed by that incredible vision.

What then is this “those who see Me will die” that God said to Moses? Sinners are said to be dead in sin but isn’t it true that we are not ‘dead enough’ to stop sinning? Isn’t seeing Jesus part of what is needed to die thoroughly to sin and be given new life? If that is so, then seeing Him does produce a death, a good kind of death that sets people free to live!

I know that my old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that I would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if I have died with Christ, I believe that I will also live with him. I know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So I also must consider myself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:6–11, personified)

Thank God this is the reality: seeing Jesus and fully believing in Him means death but also new life . . .

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

APPLY: I’m in awe at this. Singing songs about seeing Jesus take on new implications. What am I really asking if not to see Jesus — and die — to self, to wanting my way, to thinking I am the center of my world! Seeing Jesus face to face takes more than a ‘visit’ — it is about intentionally and deeply looking at Him and His saving work of putting to death all that is selfish that He might more fully live in me.

NOTE: Our church is doing podcast services. Today, the pastor suggested that Covid-19 is not the end of the world — but a dry-run for the church to bring out in us what God wants us to be for one another and for His glory. Amen!

He lets me see Him

Genesis 29; Esther 5; Matthew 28; Acts 28

This week I talked with a young woman whose mother died, young and unexpectedly. She was there when it happened and described how her skin changed color and how her mom was there and then she was gone.

This morning when I read about the women going to the tomb of Jesus, I tried to imagine what they were thinking. In those days, death likely happened in the home. Families were accustomed to having a body to wash and prepare for burial. They were familiar with what they wanted to do, but the death of Jesus was not like any other.

And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. (Matthew 28:2–6)

When my mother died, I wrote a poem that included the line, “You were just here.” I wonder if those women felt that sense of sudden loss, that moving of life out of a human body, the changes that happen and that we witness if we are there. Did they think of Jesus in terms of Him leaving them? And what did they think when they felt the earth shake? Or when the angel told them He had risen?

This was no ordinary death. They were instructed to go and tell His disciples He was alive and that they would see Him in Galilee. It is little wonder that they “departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy” and ran to do just that.

Jesus met them on the way.

Of course He did. There are some things that God knows we must actually see. He knows “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1) but He also knows and arranged it so that our faith is not imagination, wishful thinking, or anything we conjure up because we want something to be true. Believing in Jesus does involve seeing, whether words on a page or miracles or Him right before their eyes. .

When Jesus came into my life, I ‘saw’ Him; not with my eyes and yet there was a strange light. When He came, He gave me an ability to see the unseen. Before Jesus, I didn’t connect the dots of life, could not see the purpose behind events or how they worked together for the good of His people. I could not see the wonder in creation or the wonder in redemption. Jesus gave me eyes to see His kingdom and righteousness, His power and glory. Oddly, it took longer to see how much He loves me, maybe because of my slowness to understand what love really is, but He did let me see it.

My first glimpse of death as a new Christian was when my mentor’s husband died. I will never forget the way she focused on him being with Jesus, saying grief was simply being sorrow for herself, of delight that her husband’s faith was now sight. God, in amazing grace, gave her enough of a glimpse of glory to add deep joy to her mix of emotions. She missed him but would see him again. She knew where he was. She could see the hand of Jesus in all of it.

The women at the tomb were getting their instructions about death. It cannot hold the Savior nor can it hold anyone in whom the Savior lives. They ran to tell, yes with fear but also great joy.

Today, the Word of God describes how I am feeling. This makes me aware of His ability to grant daily experiences of whatever I need to experience. When His friend died, “Jesus wept.” This deepens my faith as He allows me to see how greatly He understands and empathizes with this very human condition of sorrow and loss alongside the joyful reality that He is here and He knows because He is life, eternal life.

Seeing Jesus . . .

Jesus’ disciple, John, wrote, “We are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2) Did he realize that soon after he would see Jesus as He is? Not likely, nor did he know that his vision of Jesus would be terrifying. John was not yet in his eternal state and he would be seeing Jesus through the eyes of a man not yet resurrected, not yet able to take in this vision.

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Revelation 1:12–16)

This is not the Jesus depicted in Sunday School illustrations or paintings by artists trying to capture His likeness. This is not the Lamb of God, more like the Lion of Judah, yet beyond most biblical descriptions except perhaps His appearance at the Transfiguration.

And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. (Matthew 17:2)

Like that day on the mountain, John didn’t know how to deal with this view of Jesus. He used the expression that this was “like a Son of Man” also used in Daniel 7:13 to refer to Christ. He appeared as a priest in a long robe with a golden sash around his chest. White hair corresponds to “the Ancient of Days” in Daniel 7:9 pointing to God the Father symbolized by the whiteness of His head and hair and signifying that Jesus has the same purity and eternal existence.

The eyes like blazing fire described His piercing judgment of sin, as do His feet like bronze glowing in a furnace and pointing to the bronze altar in the temple, the place of sacrifice for sin and to divine judgment. His voice was compared to the roar of rushing waters. His face glowed with a brilliance like the sun shining.

The seven stars symbolize the angels or messengers of the seven churches, held in His right hand indicating sovereign possession. The double-edged sword coming out of His mouth was ‘rhomphaia’ and used by the Romans in a stabbing action designed to kill. This Jesus Christ was no longer a baby in Bethlehem or a Man of sorrows crowned with thorns. He is now the Lord of glory!

John was terrified and fell to the ground. However, Jesus immediately reassured him:

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches. (Revelation 1:17–20)

John received reassurance from Christ in the words, “Do not be afraid” an encouragement that appears more than one hundred times in the Bible. And why not? Jesus gives reasons . . .  

Jesus Christ is the eternal One, the First and the Last, and the resurrected One, though once dead is now alive forever and ever! He alone has the keys of death and hades meaning He has authority over death and the place of the dead. He is worthy of fall-on-your-face reverence yet those who trust Him can be assured that He accepts them. My death and resurrection are in His hands.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, I’ve no idea how You will appear to me when I see You as You are, only that awe-filled fear and incredible assurance will both be there. This revelation of You is important for those who imagine You only as ‘meek and mild’ and for those who forget the awfulness of sin and the awful death You experienced so we do not have to pay its terrible price. I’ve imagined You as a Shepherd, as a Lion (like Aslan in “The Chronicles of Narnia”), as a Friend, even as a Dance Partner in the music of life, but today You give me another image on which to rest my thoughts.

Today’s thankful list . . .

- calm in my heart as I think about this view of Christ.

- assurance of my eternal destiny.

- ability to make progress on an item with a looming deadline.

- hubby helping me with a whopping big cartful of groceries.

- Pane Roma bread toasted with Brie cheese on top, yum!

- pleasant fatigue.