October 25, 2022

Psalm 27: 8 (NIV)

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Once you have seen his face you will forever long to see it again.*

All I have to do is login to Facebook and I can see pictures of the precious little faces of three of my grandchildren. Pictures of my other two grandchildren are texted to me almost every day.  I am thankful that my daughters-in-law take advantage of modern technology which allows us to stay in touch even when we can’t be together. But nothing can take the place of face-to-face, in-person interaction with someone you love. In this psalm, David expresses that longing to be in the presence of God and to see his face. But in Exodus 33: 20, God told Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

In the 1985 movie Cocoon, a group of extra-terrestrial aliens has come to earth on some unfinished business. They don’t actually have bodies – they’re just wispy, shapeless beings – so they inhabit human bodies in order to accomplish their mission without alarming the people around them. Similarly, God is spirit and has no physical body in which to move about among his people – until he inhabited the body of Jesus. Before Jesus shed his physical body, he promised to send his Spirit to dwell in his people.

In Ephesians 2: 22, Paul writes that we are being built to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Now, when we long to seek God’s face, we find him looking out from the faces of his faithful followers. If we find God’s face by looking into the faces of his people, then we should also see his face looking back at us from the mirror. Next time you work on your hair or brush your teeth, examine your face more closely. If you don’t see the face of God, perhaps you need to take some time to seek his face and his presence in your life. He rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11: 6).

He takes his children to higher levels of fellowship so they may hear him speaking “face to face.”*