TITLE: The Face of God By Garry Stopa 04/07/12 |
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1 Peter 3:12 (NKJV) "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
At first notice, the passage above has a great message. When you connect this verse with another Scripture, the message is even better.In the Old Testament, there is a book called Ezekiel. This book has some very unusual visions. You can only understand these visions by connecting them to other Scripture.
The prophet describes a vision of four creatures in Ezekiel, chapters 1 and 10. The four creatures are born-again believers; I can explain that in another post. For now, I want to bring some light to the Scripture at the top.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, born-again believers are the righteousness of God. The passage at the top says, "the Eyes of the Lord are on the righteous". Ezekiel 10:12 says, "And their whole body, with their back, their hands, their wings, and the wheels that the four had, were full of eyes all around." I like how the NLT version of the Bible puts it, "The cherubim [creatures] had eyes all over their bodies, including their hands, their backs,and their wings." Ezekiel was saying, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.
The verse at the top goes on to say, "His [God's] ears are open to their prayers." Ezekiel 10:5 says, "And the sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even in the outer court, like the voice of Almighty God when He speaks." Ezekiel says, our prayers are like the voice of God when He speaks. This is because we are children of God. When we pray, our Father hears us as His own kindred.
The passage at the top then says, "the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." Ezekiel 1:6 tells us, "Each one had four faces." Ezekiel 1:10 says, "As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side, each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and each of the four had the face of an eagle."
The four faces were the faces of Jesus. The face of man is Jesus as a man (Mat. 9:6), the face of a lion is Jesus as King (Mat. 27:11), the face of an ox is Jesus as a sacrifice (Eph. 5:2), and the face of the Eagle is Jesus as the Spirit of God (Joh. 14:26). This means, when those that do evil look at us, they see Jesus.
Now let us see the deeper meaning of the Scripture at the top. First, the eyes of God are literally upon you, part of you, and will always be watching you. Second, when God hears you, he hears His child, and He hears you loud and clear. Third, when the enemy looks at you, he sees Jesus. Every time the enemy sees you, he is reminded of what God did for you because He loves you.
Be Blessed!
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