Face to Face with God

It's always been God's idea to have face-to-face fellowship with humanity.  It is only our own disbelief and stubbornness that keeps us from having that closeness.  Adam and Eve, our first parents, walked and talked with God, until they decided (with some help from Satan) that he was holding out on them.  They withdrew from God, and there's been nothing but trouble in the world since then.

So God, who has infinite patience with us rascals, (see 1 Timothy 1:16) kept on pursuing us even when we wouldn't listen.  He rescued Israel from Egypt, to honor his promises to Abraham, and met them at Sinai to give them what we call the Old Covenant.  But they couldn't handle the fireworks and noise level (Deut. 5:4-5) so they asked him to talk to Moses alone; so God spoke with Moses face to face, instead of directly to the people.  (Ex. 33:11, Deut. 34:10).  He pursued his messy people Israel with prophets and judges, using all kinds of different metaphors and ways to describe himself, but still they didn't listen.  Finally, the Father sent his only Son. 

And still, some people didn't believe, even though God was standing there in the flesh in front of them.  Can we believe?  The Gospel accounts were written so we'd believe (John 20:30-31) but we still have a decision to make.  We need to turn and face Jesus, and give up on working our way to God by being good (that's what most religions and even many Christians teach), or even by trying to keep the Ten Commandments and the other Old Covenant laws.  Or by avoiding smoking or drinking or movies or sinners.  We have to turn and face Jesus, and believe that he has already saved us from everything we can't save ourselves from -- which is everything.  When we turn and face Jesus, we can see clearly (see 2 Cor. 3) for the first time.

What do we see when we turn to Jesus?  More on that next time.