The Nature of God, of Kings and the Place of Encounter

Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
   to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

Before we go too far into this topic, let me take a little side step and define (briefly and poorly) one of the aspects of the word "glory".   --- If you want a great read about Glory, I highly recommend my friend Paul's book "What on earth is Glory?"  it's fantastic!  --- For this time the aspect of glory I want to refer to, is that glory = Nature/innate character.

This is proven in the encounter of Moses whilst hidden in the cleft of the rock : Exodus: ^{18 (M)}Then ^[c]Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” ¹⁹ And He said, “^(N)I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and ^(O)I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” ²⁰ But He said, “You cannot see My face, ^(P)for no man can see Me and live!” ²¹ Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place ^[d]by Me, and ^(Q)you shall stand there on the rock; ²² and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and ^(R)cover you with My hand until I have passed by. ²³ Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but ^(S)My face shall not be seen.”

Wow - what an amazing passage. Perhaps one of the most amazing passages in scripture.   "²¹ Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place ^[d]by Me, and ^(Q)you shall stand there on the rock"   and who is the rock? Of course it's Jesus.    Listen and hear again the promise of God:  Behold!  There is a place, by me {FOR YOU}, and you shall stand there on the Rock!   Also, no man may see Him and live... but we now count ourselves dead to sin and alive/born again IN Christ!  Hidden, by God's own Hand IN Jesus, IN the cleft of the ROCK! It is IN Jesus (the rock) that the place of Encounter is found.  IN Jesus, we are not alive to/for ourselves anymore, but we are dead to sin/this world, but alive to God, IN Christ.... therefore we get to see HIS face!

And listen to the Heart of God for us from Song of Solomon 2:14 "My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely."

Look at that!  IN THE CLEFT OF THE ROCK!!!! In  the hidden place IN Jesus, is the place of encounter. It is where we get to see/experience/know Him  & where He gets to see/experience and know US!  It should not be overlooked that the heart of God is longing to have you and I reveal ourselves to Him. 

There is SO much in this passage about the promise of seeing and knowing Him.

Moses asks/prays/begs to see Gods glory... God's response "I will make all of my goodness..."  I Will make (NOTE*** Everything God does initiates in the heart of God.  He is not compelled by us, He is compelled by His own nature.  He is released through our faith - in order to be Himself in our midst.) A.W. Tozer put it this way "God is the reason for all He does" and again he says "let us not suppose that God loves us because we are loveable, but because He is love."   In this passage one of the things that God is saying is "I will do what is in my heart to do...not because of you, but because of me"  *paraphrase is mine.

The other interesting thing here * and this is back to my original point* is that Moses askes to see/encounter Glory and God doesn't say no, He says yes.  But what He shows Moses is an aspect of His own Nature! 

Back to the verse I opened this with : It is the glory "Nature" of God to conceal a matter...  if you feel that God is hiding something from you, that what you're looking for always seems just beyond your reach... that you have dreams in your heart (from Him/He is behind them) but they seem like they are always hidden from plain view........ well that's simply God being himself towards you.  It's part of who He is.  Jesus spoke in riddles Matt 13:13 ""Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand."   *Ezekiel 12:2 shows us that the cause of being unable to hear/see is a rebellious heart. Therefore it can be assumed that a repentant/broken/contrite heart is able to see and hear!
NOW - get this "It the glory "Nature" of Kings to search it out

IN Jesus we have been made co-heirs with Christ.  It is often assumed that this makes us "Princes/Princesses" in His Kingdom.  but that's not what a co-heir is... a prince is one step removed from being the King.  HE is in fact training us to be kings, not princes. 
In hiding/concealing a matter he is causing our Kingly nature to be forced to rise to the surface.  Prov 25:4  "remove the dross from the silver, cause the true metal to come forth, and the silversmith can produce a vessel." italics mine*
In concealing from us, He is forcing us to allow our Kingly glory/nature to rise up on the inside of us, in order that we may continue to be transformed into a nation of Kings. Revelation 1:5,6 says, “...Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father...”


So my friends... you and I are being made into a nation of kings.  And it is in our very nature, our dna, to search out what He has concealed.  The best place to start is by opening our eyes and ears, through repentance of rebellion in our hearts... the next step is to find the place in the cleft of the Rock.  The Place of Encounter, in Jesus.  He is hiding... not from you.  But FOR you.  Selah.  

He never promised it would be easy... just that He would be Faithful

So, friends - are you like me? Do you forget that He never promised it would be easy? 

I think that I can get so "American-ized" in my view of the Godhead (Father,Son Holy Spirit) that I think that if I'm walking in obedience, that everything should just be "blessed"...meaning I get what I want, when I want and nothing is ever difficult.

I don't mean to slight my American brothers, it's just a predominant message that seems to come across in the US Christian culture.  However, here in Canada, I'm sure what the predominant "Christian" message is. I don't know... "be nice"?
Anyway, somewhere along the line I picked up the notion that Jesus would make my life here on earth easy, drama free, pain free and well... "blessed" {meaning I get what I want when i want it with little to no effort or patience}

That's not to say that He doesn't do those things.  He totally does!

 I just think that too often people go through a really hard time and think that they have left God's path.  "If I was walking with God/if God was walking with me, it wouldn't be so hard."

Tell me friend.  Where does HE ever promise that in Scripture?  If you can find it please correct me.  I find more passages talking about going through hard times WITH Him being faithful.

SO today I'm reminded to lift up my head.  The difficulties in my life are not so great as to destroy me.  This is but a chance to love Him in the midst of a manifestation of Hell.  Something I won't be able to offer Him in heaven, so I'd better make the most of it now.

Aside:

Have you ever thought how beautiful suffering/trials can be?  After our bodies decay and stop housing our immortal souls, we run out of chances to experience the trials/sufferings of this life.  Going through the shit of daily life was so important that Jesus Himself was made perfect through the process of going through shit storms. 

A servant is not above the Master...so we probably really need a lot of those storms to take the edges off of us.   I know I do.  And I'm going to work to open my heart, lift up my gates and let the King of Glory come into my garden.

I am far far far from perfect, and far from knowing obedience.  But I'm learning and it's through the storms that I'm finding Him faithful.

"Yes I know every circumstance is a gift from you. If I should take happiness from your hand, shouldn't I take sorrow too...You took away the idol of my guilt, You're the one who saved me, from myself. Taught me how to love, to forgive the greatest debts, and the mercy you don't give...is the mercy you don't get."  -Kevin Prosch

love to the germans

So it appears that there are several people in Germany who enjoy reading what I have to say.  Just wanted to send some love out to my German friends. Big Hugs!

The Green Mile, I'm not sure if I love that movie or not. I am sure in the reality of becoming aware of our own mortality.

The Mile refers to the last walk of an inmate as they move down the hall towards their impending execution. Obviously it is a walk that by it's nature forces one to become aware that they will soon stop breathing.

If you lift your perspective a little bit, perhaps you can see that you too are already walking your own "Green Mile". I don't mean to be morose, instead what I'm referring to is the fact that today each of us is one day,'a few more steps towards the end of our own path.

Now, here's the GOOD NEWS and it comes in two parts; 1) you are not alone in your walk. 2) if you are in fact taking this walk with Jesus, the end of this path, is not the destination, instead you will see that in one sense this path has been merely the walkup to the gates of your home!

Now today, what I'm thinking about is the walk itself. Yesterday my friend and Pastor spoke about walking with Jesus. It got me thinking about all the people HE has walked with in Scripture, and the walk that I've been on with Him these past 12 rotations of the sun.

In fact as I type, I'm wondering how many people in churches have yet to start really walking with Him; rather than just stopping to pay respects at intervals along the way.

For me, I started walking with Him in the Summer of 99. I had been saved and filled with Holy Spirit several years earlier, but it was then that my journey started to take into account the fact that I was not alone, and that He had better direction than I did.

In a practical way, in the spring of 2000 I started taking walks with Him. As in I would go on a walk, without other people, but just with Him. I started thinking that if I was to one day marry Jesus, that we'd better start by dating.  So since I didn't really know how to "know" God, I started interacting with Him the way I would when I would start dating someone. 

So we started going on walks, I would talk, He would listen.  He would talk, I would cry. It was good.  I talked to Him about my childhood, memories I had, my first kiss, my first BMX bike and how much I loved BMX riding as a kid.  I talked to Him about HighSchool and how much it sucked.  How my heart hurt all the time, and how afraid I was.  I laughed at myself, He laughed at me too.  We talked about dreams in my heart, dreams in His heart.  He would tell me where He was when I got my first BMX, or how He remembered the crush I had on Kelly Shiplack all through grade school.   He would talk to me about my parents and give me perspective on what they were going through as I was growing up.  He would talk to me about His heart, His thoughts on what was happening with His family. (His kids really) Talked about how He sees time, and how He is outside of Time and yet present in Time as well. (That was a long talk ; ) 

Most of all we just walked.  Sometimes we would hold hands.  (I'm serious, if you've never physically felt Him hold your hand, you should ask Him to sometime.  BUT be open for it to be different than my experience...)

SO - back to the Green Mile.  I think that depending on your destination, you are in the foothills of Heaven, or the Mountain tops of Hell.

If you are walking without Him, I don't know how you do it. I have a respect for you.  but also I am sad for you. I'm sad the way you'd feel if your friend was at the beach on a perfect day, but refused to come out of the port-a-john because they believed that they had everything they needed in there. 

If you are walking with Him, be encouraged, He is leading you to His own realm and showing you hints of Heaven along the way.

If you are following Him, why don't you ask Him to wait up and walk the rest of the way together. It's far more fun to Hold His Hand.

Selah.