God did, still does and always
will appear to men, women and children. We are successful in our pursuit of God
because He desires to make Himself known to man. Paul, the Apostle, like John
the Revelator, discovered spiritual gateways that translated him into the
heavenly realms. Paul entered heavenly places; so it is also possible for us.
An expectant faith, activated through the avenues of prayer, praise and
worship, open heavenly doors.
In 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, Paul
spoke of receiving revelatory visions from the Lord. God is incomprehensible.
Yet if we do not lift our voices in praise and adoration the very stones will
cry out to declare His greatness. But how do we describe the visions we behold
in another dimension that we only visit for moments at a time? When we are in
the presence of a holy God we are overwhelmed with His love, yet silence
prevails. How can man describe the majesty of our God? What man knows the
things of God? Paul assured the Athenians "God is not far from
each one of us; it is through Him that we are able to live, move, be who we are
and exist, as some of your own poets have stated, 'For we also are His children,
we come from Him.'" Acts 17:27-28 (Authors'
paraphrase)
Prophets encourage us to press
past our natural limitations to pursue the indescribable majesty of our
unspeakable God. Paul did not know whether he was in the body or out of the
body when he was caught up into the "third heaven." He experienced
"inexpressible things that man is not permitted to speak." Things that take
place in heaven are too wonderful for man and past our ability to bring a total
comprehension into the earthly realms of existence. It was impossible to
accurately communicate what he heard, saw and experienced in the heavenly
realms because man's understanding and vocabulary are childlike and
insufficient to grasp and communicate the wonders of heaven.
God is Complete
How can our spirit conceive
eternity and contemplate the greatness of an infinite God? The most eloquent
human speech does not have the ability to give expressions that equal His
boundless grandeur. God is complete within Himself. God spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast, the moment He speaks things happen. The living
breath of His creative Words brought life into a clay existence; His powerful
voice brought chaos into order, framed the world and formed the whole universe
commanding darkness into light. His presence brings peace beyond our
understanding. That is why Paul cried out, "That I might know Him!"
Our temporal minds sink into
silence, they are overwhelmed when we attempt to place articulate meaning to
the heavenly visions we encounter. We struggle to know the splendor of God in
spiritual reality and interpretations of truth when previously we had only
known of Him by the hearing of the Word or legends communicated to us by those
who have gone before. Our heart bows in awe and radiant wonder of His majestic,
expansive being, when we are finally acquainted to Him. We are consumed with
fearful wonder gasping, "Oh! How great is our God!" How can words describe
something so glorious or someone so brilliant when we have never previously
beheld the glorious presence of this magnitude? Our imaginations are creative
but without an accurate knowledge of God how do we define what or Who we are
seeing? A. W. Tozer said, "The effort of inspired men to express the ineffable
has placed a great strain upon both thought and language in the Holy
Scriptures. These being often a revelation of a world above nature, and the
minds for which they were written being a part of nature, the writers are
compelled to use a great many "like" words to make themselves understood."
Search for the Face of God
In times of trouble King David's
heart whispered for him to, "Search for the face of God!" David's whole being
responded in pursuit of God in humble prayer, "God Your sovereign presence has
always been here for me, do not hide or turn Your back from me now, 'My heart
is Seeking Your Face!' "Your Spirit is current everywhere I go. I am always in
Your affectionate watch. Even if I flew on the golden wings of the dawn to the
farthest horizon, there I will find Your adoring gaze." David's pursuit of God
was successful because God desired to be found of him. God also desires to be
found of us. We will find God when we search for Him with all our heart.
Religion is complacent,
stiff-necked and rebellious. Complacency is the enemy of spiritual hunger for
it robs us of all desire. Without a desperate desire to know God, there will be
no manifestation of God. We learn to love because God first loved us. When we
love God passionately with our whole heart, barriers are removed and the
distance of eternity fades away. As a true lady must wait for romantic pursuit;
so the Holy Spirit waits for our desire for Him to grow until we pursue His
face with our whole heart.
God stood and revealed Himself to
Moses in a cloud of glory proclaiming His names, character and nature until
Moses' face shone with God's transcendent light. When Moses caught a small
glimpse of God's favor he asked to see His glory. When Moses experienced a
touch of the glory he prayed for God's continual presence. Moses did not want
to move from the presence of God but cried out to know Him from glory to glory.
We should immolate Moses' unsatisfied hunger for more of God.
Stephen was full of faith, grace
and power to perform miracles. As the religious leaders who were void of power
threw stones that crushed his bones and tore his flesh, Stephen fixed his gaze
on an open heaven and saw Jesus proudly stand to usher him into eternity.
Encountering God Daily
The Spirit of the Lord snatched
Phillip away in a transportation experience. All of these men of God knew how
to go in and out of the heavenly presence of the Lord. We were created to daily
encounter the God who created the universe and still holds it in His loving
hands. We are designed to walk and talk with the Divine, to feel the breath of
the Holy Spirit and the brush of angels wings upon our faces. Why then are we
content to settle for the visible, material realm of decay when we were created
to navigate the corridors of glory?
Solomon received God's gift of
wisdom in a dream. He exclaimed, "O God of glory who
dwells above the heavens; will You really dwell on the earth? Why the whole
sky, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, so how much less this
house which I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27-28 Authors' Paraphrase) Solomon's
words were the calculations of sound wisdom and ardent study. God's Words are
the blessed essence of truth. When God whispers the whole world listens to gain
wisdom.
Jesus, God's only Son, is our
moral compass. He directs us into spiritual places where everything depends
upon us yielding to the Holy Spirit's will and being in a harmonious
relationship with God. God's greatest desire is for us to know and experience Him.
He wants to be our inheritance and supreme part in life. In times of visitation
God teaches us what we do not know; so we can adjust our positional gaze to
recognize the presence of God. If God is here among us, living in us and
everywhere around us, we are dislocated like Jacob, who after gazing upon Jesus
in a vision cried out, "Surely God is in this place; and I knew it not!" We
must use our limited knowledge to transport us past the mundane and
recognizable into the vast spiritual dimensions of the unknown.
Barbie Breathitt
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