Dear CSOPC brothers and sisters,
- There will be NO BIBLE STUDY tonight. We will take a few weeks off as we concluded our study of Zechariah last week. Stay tuned for when we will get started on a new book!
- Please be in prayer for the Lord’s blessings on our upcoming Spring retreat. And let’s pray for some good weather as well.
- Men, we plan to have a men’s retreat Friday – Saturday, May 13-14. More details to come!
- Fellowship Lunch this Sunday. Please bring a main dish or side to share!
- Finally, this week’s devotion (attached) is a reflection on the glorious truth that we will ‘see his face.’
From the Pastor’s Desk
Mid-week Devotional
“They Will See His Face”
Revelation 22:4, “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”
The greatest blessing that Christians will experience in the New Heavens and the New Earth is the blessing of sight – that is, we will ‘see his face.’ We will see our Savior face to face! We will see him and be with him in glorified, unbroken communion for eternity. As believers living in a fallen and sinful world our sight now is clouded. It is blurred by sin and by the realities of life in this world ‘that is passing away’ (1 Cor 7:31). As Paul puts it, we now “see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor 13:12). For this brief devotion, we will trace this theme of ‘seeing’ our Lord.
Of course, in the original garden-temple (in the ‘state of innocence’), Adam walked with the Lord and enjoyed intimate fellowship with Him. The Lord spoke directly to Adam and Adam enjoyed unbroken communion with his covenant Lord.
Adam, however, disobeyed the word of God and plunged creation and the human race into sin (Genesis 3). And sinful man (in the ‘state of sin’) is blind to the things of the Lord. Sinful man cannot see God (John 3:3). Paul writes that fallen man is ‘darkened in their understanding’ (Eph 4:18); and Jesus refers to the hardened Pharisees as the ‘blind leading the blind’ (Matt 15:14). Indeed the blind man of John 9 is a living, breathing illustration of spiritual blindness. The unbeliever is like a blind man in the midst of the desert; the sun of God’s revelation shines all around him, yet he is blind to the truth (1 Cor 2:14; 2 Cor 4:4).
The believer – in stark contrast to the unbeliever – can now see the Lord. He can see him with the eyes of faith. We have new hearts (Ezek 36:26) – our eyes have been opened! The Lord has performed spiritual surgery on us – we have been born from above (John 3:3-8). We now walk by faith (2 Cor 5:7) – the eyes of our heart have been opened (Eph 1:18). Our confession (in the ‘state of grace’) is that of the blind man, “I once was blind, but now I see” (John 9:25). Our sight, however, is still not perfected. It is not ‘glorified’ sight. It is blurred by sin – it is not ’20-20’ sight of our Lord. So often we are distracted by the things of the world, and our eyes focus on things other than our Lord (1 John 2:16-17). As Paul says, now ‘we see in a mirror dimly’ (1 Cor 13:12a).
When the Lord brings us home we will see him face to face (1 Cor 13:12b). We will see him as he is (1 John 3:2). In the New Heavens and the New Earth (in the ‘state of glory’) our sight of Christ will not be stained by sin; it will not be blurred by the things of the world. We will enjoy unbroken, perfected communion with our Lord. Our faith will give way to sight (2 Cor 5:7; Matt 5:8). Oh what a sight that will be! As Adam walked with the Lord in the first temple-garden, so we will walk with Christ in the new temple-garden, in the paradise of God (Rev 2:7). As the Apostle John puts it, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev 22:3-4).
Brothers and sisters, what a sight awaits us. To see our Lord face to face! To see him in glory! To see him with unstained and unspotted sight! But until that day, may we run the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the founder ad perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:1-2).