OH BEHOLD HIM!

 Praise God!

God is good, all the time, and all the time, He is good!

I was having my quiet time, two days ago to be precise and I felt the urge to be quiet and be still in the presence of God. As though my spirit was speaking, I wrote in my journal first, that I pray, not just because of what I get to receive as a result of prayer, but because of the person I am becoming in prayer. 

Wade through!

2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to even more glory , which comes from the Lord who is Spirit.

Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew [and loved and chose beforehand], He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son [and ultimately share in His complete sanctification], so that He would be the firstborn [the most beloved and honored] among many believers. 

Colossians 3:10 ... and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto the knowledge of Him that created him.

Back to my quiet time with the Lord. I have been during this week, pondering on the scriptures above and  two days ago, I realized the blessedness of spending time with the Lord not bombarding Him with questions and needs but beholding Him! I realized how I was so quick to go in the presence of God with a structure of how our quiet time would go, and they all turned out great, but then I was missing out on the bit where I am either laying prostate before Him, kneeling down etc, with the primary focus of beholding Him. 

In the beginning of this month, as I tarried in prayer, I begun to hear a chorus in my spirit repetitively saying, come up hither! I know, dear reader, that there is so much going on in the world, there is so much to pray about, but we are missing out on transformational encounters that God wants us to have during this time because we are so consumed in doing other stuff when we come to the presence of God and leave without beholding Him. He really wants us to experience His glory like never before and in it, be continually transformed into the image of  His dear Son, but then, do we desire the same? 

One of the reasons why the church experiences some set backs is because we, the bride, are not becoming continually as He is. We are not reflections of Jesus, therefore, we end up not representing Him the right way. When men look at us, they see us and not Jesus, and the main reason is He(Jesus) has not become our main obsession leaving the things of the world to carry the day. If the world cannot see Jesus in us and through us, how do we even bring them into this Kingdom of light? So what ends up happening, we get mocked, we now have to argue with them doctrinally to prove points, and we end up becoming as foolish as they are, why? Our ambitions are positions of power, are how we can attract the largest of crowds, are how many miracles we have done in the past few months, super vain things, and we become way too busy for Jesus, and it is because we do not want to go up to the place where God is calling us to, to the rock that He has cleft for us, and ask Him one thing, to just cause all of His goodness to pass before us( not in any way insinuating that asking God for things is wrong or seeking for answers) and we come down truly carrying Him, we come down carrying the treasure that is Him in this jars of clay...behold Him!

Becoming, being transformed into His image is a continual process and I love what Paul says that we are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another. When you allow God to truly work in you completely, the process is always from glory to glory and not from backsliding to glory! There is a known scripture that says, work out your own salvation with fear and in trembling in Philippians 2:12 but then we do not continue on to verse 13 which is amazing and it says that it is God who is effectively at work in you both to will and to work in His good pleasure. The same way, dear reader, we cannot transform ourselves, we can only behold Him and place ourselves in a position where the Holy Spirit is able to work the transformation in us. It is what He does through you when you allow Him that stays.

It has to be our desire that from head to toe, we are Him. People must look at us and see Him, hear us speak and hear Him, and to tell you the truth, there is so much yielding and surrendering that we need to do, because in words, it is easy to say we surrender all, until the Lord tells you that He wants the whole of you and you are required to leave nothing to yourself. Friends, the image we are to take after every single day is an image that must stay and never fade, and with that said, you cannot make it up! There is nothing like pretending to be like Jesus.  It has to show all over our lives even with us not having to say a single word. 

Jesus is to be beheld! To behold, is to carefully look into intently. He wants us to gaze at Him. He wants us to be fixated on Him. He is too beautiful to look away from, behold Him. It is time to respond to Him, to the moments He asks you come up hither, there is a grace right now, there are men that the Lord is showing great mercy, to dwell in glory, yes in the place that He dwells, and He wants more of us to plug in.  It just requires that we choose Him above all else, needs us to stop looking at the wrong stuff, wrong people. Behold Him! Let Him be all that you want to gaze at. He is so beautiful!😭There is a blessedness in being able to be in awe of the Lord of glory.

I have realized that the many times I questioned who I was, or who I will ever be because of circumstances, or what I have heard people say, was because I allowed myself to be soaked up in their words, I allowed them to define me, and maybe that is what you think right now, but you see, I got my freedom, when I chose to be immersed into the glory of God, and the more I got immersed, I did not just see who I was, but I keep seeing who I am and meant to be,all you need to do is behold Him!  You cannot begin to see others through the eyes of God, if you do not see you through His eyes. I keep hearing people say I want the God of this or that man of God (and this is okay), and for many, in essence, this men of God have become their object of adoration, and they end up being like this men of God and not like God and oh what a great tragedy, not that this people desired the wrong thing, but because some men of God are drawing men to themselves. There are times, we really struggle with ungodly things because we have are more aware of sins than we are of the glory of God which is available to them that desire it. The weight of sin is overburdening some of you, when God wants to overwhelm you with the weight of His glory and all you need to do is enter in. Have you forgotten that you have received access to the throne room?

There is a level of intimacy with God that we need to get into, being intimate even with the Word. We like David, must come to a place where we say that our souls long for Him! He has to be the One we adore, no one and nothing else! God desires that you and I become a reflection of who He is, but then we must give ourselves to beholding Him, allowing ourselves to be immersed in His passion too, there is a grace to delve deep in the riches of Gods glory, there is a grace to worship at the throne room of God joining the heavenly hosts, there is a grace to set yourself apart to just be with the Lord, not to do much, but behold Him! Are you finding yourself oh so dissatisfied by everything? God was meant to be the One who satisfies you and hence the void. Have you found yourself getting an unlasting pleasure in the things you indulge in that are of the world? Again, it is because you have neglected your place of fellowship with God. You cannot fully function without God. It is God who can truly satisfy the longing of your heart. You find yourself content with other stuff apart from God? The idols you have greatly erected in your heart have taken the place of God and they will only lead to destruction, lay them down, come back to Jesus.

We behold Christ, we become like Christ!

My prayer: Lord, help me to see You as You really, really are! Give me grace to continually be found in You.Lord, it is when I see You that I see me. I want my eyes to lock with Yours. I love it when as I dare nigh to thee you also are drawing nigh to me,and to get oh so lost in You! You're all I really want! I love You, my eyes are fixed on You, Forever! I want to always be in awe of You,even Your splendor and majesty! It is indeed true for me in my life,that the highest honor and calling, is to bow before Your throne. I'm forever in love with You ❤️