Paul wrote that in everything he had gone through he had but one cry: “that I may know Him.” We have that same cry. Whatever we have gone through has been for the single purpose that we may know the Lord, that we may behold Him and be transformed into His image. As we have been celebrating the Feast of Purim, let us believe for the instant change that comes for us as we stand in the presence of the King today.
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Show Notes:
I think most people avoid the book of Job because they do not want to read about all the suffering that God allowed satan to inflict on Job. But we also know from the book of Job that God allowed it to teach Job and bring him to a place of greater blessing in his life. It also may seem to us that satan is behind much of the suffering we go through. Yet we know that nothing happens to us without God allowing it. And He is allowing it to teach us, to impart to us, and to bring us out of something old into something new.
At the end of his experience, Job said, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.” When I read this, it just came so alive to me that everything we have gone through has been allowed by God to bring us to the place where our eye sees Him. Like Job, we have heard about the Lord. We have had amazing teaching about God. We have heard and spoken a living Word. But there is a new level of beholding the Lord that I believe is available to us.
Moses was someone who heard the voice of the Lord, who moved in miracles of God, but everything changed for him when he beheld the Lord and spoke with Him face to face. Everything changed for Esther and for the Jewish people when she stood face to face with the king. This instant change is what we celebrate at the Feast of Purim. Let us believe to behold the Lord, to stand before the Lord and speak with Him face to face. Everything can change as a result.
Key Verses:
- Job 42:1–6. “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.”
- Exodus 33:9–11. “Whenever Moses entered the tent, … the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face.”
- Esther 4:14. “Who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”
- 2 Corinthians 3:18. “We all … beholding … the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.”
- Philippians 3:7–10. “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish … that I may know Him.”
Quotes:
- “It’s too real to go through these experiences knowing that maybe they’re even satanically initiated. But they’re allowed by God, and in God’s allowance He is teaching us.”
- “Up to this point we’ve known about Him, we’ve spoken about Him, but it hasn’t taken away the cry to really behold Him and see Him and know Him on another level.”
- “I’m glad for the loss. I’m glad for what God has taken me through because I count all these other things now as rubbish that I might gain Christ.”
Takeaways:
- We have heard the Word of the Lord spoken to us. We have heard many things about the Lord. We have been taught many things about the Lord. But I feel like there is an experience for us where we behold the Lord.
- Paul wrote that everything he had known in the past was rubbish compared with knowing the Lord. And everything that we have known, no matter how important it was to us, no matter how difficult it was, has been to bring us to this place of beholding the Lord in a new way.
- God has been dealing with our hearts and preparing us for such a time as this, just as Mordecai told Esther. And we know that what initiated the events of Purim was Esther going in and standing before the king. We too cry for this experience of standing before the Lord and knowing Him in a way that we have never known before.
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