There is a song by Don Potter which has been in my head. A portion of they lyrics are, “I can make it to the end if I can just see His face.” A while back I heard Heidi Baker, a missionary to Africa, describing a time when she had seen the face of the Lord in a vision. She described his deep, piercing, beautiful eyes, the love seen in those eyes, and more that I cannot even remember at this point. A few weeks ago I started trying to close my eyes and see His face. I am longing in my soul to see those same deep, beautiful, piercing eyes up close just as she did. But when I close my eyes I either see His face in a very transparent way or I see Him standing a few feet away. But i haven’t gotten the close-up of His face that I long to see.
So this morning as I was thinking about this, the thought came that how well we see His face depends on how closely we follow Him. So if you (or () want to see that face up close and personal, we have to be following Him that closely! Alternatively, if we only follow from a distance, we will not be able to see His face except from a distance.
James 4:8 says: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify yourhearts, you double-minded.”
A lot of times when I’ve read this verse or heard others refer to it, we/they seemed to stop after the first part, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” But the verse doesn’t stop there. The rest of the verse says, ” Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!
Oh. So the later part of that verse tells us the secret to drawing close to the Lord. We have to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts and THEN we can draw near to God and He will draw near to us!
No matter how closely we walk with the Lord, we can always come closer and closer. I want to be “whisper close” as Leonard Ravenhill once said. And then, I will be able to see His face!
Lord help us to forsake sin and the things that set us behind and let us wash our hands of those things, purify our hearts before You, and draw near. We want to be near to You!
Living Life 
Amen! I needed to hear that! You are a blessing!
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