Sunday, January 20, 2008

SEEK HIS FACE!

“When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ My heart said to You, ‘Your face, LORD, I will seek’” (Psalm 27:8).

What did David mean and why did he say this?

The church in the western world is overly enamored with all the blessings that come from being a Christian. Look down the list of current best-sellers in Christian bookstores and you find titles like Become a Better You or 8 Steps to Create the Life You Want. Scan down the list of programs on Christian television and you find program after program like “Changing Your World” (not the world, your world) or “Creating Your World” or “Winning in Life.”

Most of the seminars for church leaders today feature only the pastors of mega-churches and revolve around their stories of success in building a big church. In essence, the seminars/conferences are saying, “These leaders are the measuring stick by which you can gauge your level of success.” The unspoken message here is: “If you want to be considered a success then you have to have a big church or ministry.”

We have reached a new low in the church by suggesting that success for believers is measured by the number of blessings that we can stuff in our pockets or that success for a local church is gauged primarily by its size.

The western church has lowered its sights to seek what the hand of God can do for it. The focus of the church has become increasingly self-centered as it has shifted to temporal and material issues rather than eternal truths and principles. The church has begun to seek the hand of God and not the face of God; the church has begun to seek the benefits of relationship with God rather than the relationship itself.

When we seek what God can do for us rather than to know Him, we do not honor the Lord in the manner that we should. Could I be so bold as to say that when we seek His hand and not His face we dishonor the Lord? When we set our priority to seek Him, to seek His face and do so without reservation, then He extends His hand on our behalf.

In Psalm 27, David rehearses the testimony of God’s faithfulness in keeping him in the midst of attack after attack. Verse four gives us a key to understanding why David was a “man after God’s heart” and was so blessed by God.

“One thing have I desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple.”


It is out of David’s rehearsing God’s faithfulness and out of his own heartfelt declaration that he begins to pray in verse eight. “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ My heart said to You, ‘Your face, LORD, I will seek’”. David did not let his prayer get consumed with the benefits of his relationship with the Lord; instead, he refocused his attention on what was really important—and that was to know God, to seek His face.

It is so easy to simply focus on the benefits of knowing Christ rather than actually getting to know Him. We see this principle played out at Christmastime. If children are not taught what Christmas is about, their experience will be focused only on what gifts they receive. To the child who only gets a few gifts, Christmas is defined as being a failure. When Christmas is defined only by what we receive then we have lost sight of the real meaning of Christmas.

The Lord said to David, “Seek my face.” David’s response is important to grasp: “My heart said to you.” Everything within David responded back to the Lord, “Your face I will seek.” David understood that his victory, his success, his power did not come from focusing on the benefits but from knowing His God.

It is not wrong to enjoy the blessings and benefits of our relationship with God. David said in Psalm 68:19, “Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation!” The benefits are the overflow of a personal and growing relationship with God. We seek to know Him and build on that relationship; we don’t seek His hand, for then there is little to build on.

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