No Longer Defective and Powerless
By the time our daughter was in Kindergarten, God’s people wounded our family deeply. This resulted in me believing the narrative in my head that I was less than, that something was wrong with me. This false belief put a rift between God and me. The rift existed because I was afraid to listen in the prayer closet. If a friend told me that living face to face with God is learning to come to Him unveiled, I would have thought that will never happen for me.
One day, walking home from my daughters kindergarten I heard the Lord’s voice break past the other voices. “I want to speak to you face to face like I did with Moses.” I was euphoric. God wanted to speak to me. I did not tell anyone about this for years. If I spoke it out loud, I knew the enemy would do his best to steal this from me.
I did not know that day, but God wants to speak to all of His children in this way. Face to face with God means coming to Him unveiled. This is a process. So, that means you. If you say to others or to yourself that you just don’t hear God, quit saying that and get in the word and prayer and start listening. Our feelings of inadequacy can make us feel we cannot hear God, but our feelings are liars fed by the enemy’s narrative. This is much like what is going on in our nation and the church. Much of what we believe is what we want to believe, or were taught.
Song 4:7 All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you. NIV
Col. 2:9 For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;
First, we have no flaw because of the blood of Jesus. Next, He is the fullness of deity and we are complete in Him. The words made complete means we sit passively while He pours His fullness into us. The more we receive this the more we become like Him. In the meantime, Christ in us needs to become our reality.
Face to Face With God
We have all of His power and purity available, but we must believe this to see it operate. It cannot operate apart from an intimate relationship with Him. In other words, we cannot just name it and claim it. We must determine to live in His presence and allow Him to live through us. If we are just beginning a commitment to this, we will fail more often that not, but the commitment is the point. He will bring the reality. Our part is to quit receiving the narratives that keep us bound and replace them with the word of God. It will not return empty but will accomplish the purposes of God in our lives.
There is only one necessary thing for us and that is to know God. Everything else flows out of this. Face to face with God is learning to come to Him unveiled and know Him. This is the true purpose of our lives.