If My People…(5)

To seek the face of God is to pass through death.

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2 Chronicles 7:14-15 – If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.  Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.

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In the book of Exodus, we see Moses when he has come to a place of calling on the Lord as he seeks to lead the people of God safely to the Promised Land.  In that encounter, Moses set before the Lord one of the greatest petitions a man could offer.  He asked of the Lord that he might see the Lord’s glory.  I find the answer of the Lord most interesting.  Father did not speak of glory at the petition of Moses, but rather said, “Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me, and live.”  Consider that statement from the mouth of Jehovah.  Moses asked to see Father’s glory, but Father said no man, and that included Moses, could see His face and live.  Can you see that for which Moses was asking?  Father was telling Moses that to see His face meant death to the one seeing.  In short, Moses wanted to see God’s face so much that he was willing to die for it.  That is the depth of intent one must have in this case to see God’s face.

Keeping in mind the words of the Lord to Moses concerning seeing His face, now consider the teaching of Apostle Paul noted in Manna for Today.  Paul spoke to the issue of dying to one’s self.  He spoke of dying daily so that daily he could awake to righteousness and sin not.  When the Exodus and 1 Corinthians passages are connected, we see that for us to live in the manner Christ prescribed, we must pass through death.  When Paul was converted, he passed through what he called the death of the Cross.  He said he was crucified with Jesus.  Then he went on to say that he yet lived, and the life he lived was Christ living in him.  Nothing has changed.  We must follow that same path.  When we were born again, we died the death of the cross, and the life that we now live is by faith in Jesus, and by the presence of Christ in us, the hope of glory.  Each day we rise, and instead of living to please ourselves and our physical senses, we choose to live for the glory of God, we die to ourselves.  And every day we do so, we are in a position to look upon the face of the Lord from which shines His glory to illuminate our path and the steps we should follow.  By seeking His face, we do so we may truly live.

Manna for Today – 2 Chronicles 6:3 – 7:15; Exodus 33:17-23; 2 Corinthians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 15:31-49