Devo 14: See God and Live?

Exodus 33:18-20

And he [Moses] said, “Please show me Your glory,”

Then He [the Lord] said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.”

But He said, “You cannot not see My face, for no man shall see Me and live…”

When I was first introduced to this whole prayer movement idea, what really drew me to it was the primary theme they have from Psalm 27:4—“One thing have I desired, this is what I seek that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord…”

That Psalm continues with “When you said, ‘Seek My face!’ My heart said to you, Your face, Lord, I will seek…” (Ps. 27:8)

This is the primary cry of my heart and has been for a long time, that I would see the face of God. I ache for it. We all should. That is the hope of our calling—that one day we will see His face.

Even though this is the cry of my heart, however, I have continuously pondered the difference between this psalm of David and this encounter of God with Moses in Exodus. David surely knew that no man could see God and live. He knew every intricate detail of the Law of Moses, so surely he knew that no man could see God and live, yet he yearned to see His face.

Not only did David yearn to see His face, but He said that God spoke to his heart, “Seek my face,” which means that God put that cry in his heart. Huh.

So, when I picture myself approaching the throne and the fire is all around, the lightning is striking, the sounds are loud—it is truly a sensory overload; usually sometime in the midst of it all, I think, “Surely, I am going to die.” Then, I realize, “Of course, I will—no man can see God and live, but it is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. That’s what I want anyway” (Gal. 2:20).

My God is a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24), who dwells in unapproachable light (I Tim. 6:16). I Timothy says no man can see Him or has seen him and yet Jesus says, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Yet, now that we have Jesus living inside of us, we can boldly approach the throne of the Father and see Him face to face (Heb. 4:16).

When we approach His throne, we die. No man can see the Father and live—except Jesus who is a man, yet He is also God. Jesus Himself is a consuming fire. The unapproachable God, consuming fire, light of the world came and made His home in us.

Now we can see the Father; we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. We are being conformed into His image (Rom. 8:29), transformed from glory to glory (II Cor. 3:18), and called out of darkness into his marvelous light (I Pet. 2:9).

The crazy thing is that although the Lord Himself said that we cannot see Him and live (Ex. 33:20), He is the One who put the cry in our heart to see His face! (Ps. 27:8). Here we are all afraid of dying when we approach Him, but we need to die, so that Christ can be fully displayed in our lives.

For this reason, we—like Moses—can pray, “Lord, show me your Glory.” We, like David, can pray, “Lord, I want to see your face.” It is in this search that we are transformed. As we look into those eyes of blazing fire, everything in us is consumed and we are left burning with the Glory of the Lord like when Moses came down from the mountain and everyone knew He had seen God.

So pray this if you dare, “Lord, show me your glory. Let me see your face. I know I will never be the same, but I want to be like you. I don’t care if I die. I want you to live in me. Consume me with your eternal, glorious flame. Oh, how I love you!”

Love,

Amanda

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