Beholding the Beauty of the Lord
(Ps. 27:4) One thing I ask of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.
Have you ever peered over a high mountain edge or a great canyon? Have you ever stared at a sunset on the sea? Have you ever admired the topside of the clouds from an airplane window?
Seeing such beaty with our own eyes produces a sense of awe and wonder in our hearts.
In Psalm 27:4, David says that he longs to live and walk in the awareness of God’s nearness SO THAT he might behold, or gaze up, the beauty of God. David was fixated on God’s beauty.
What does it mean to behold the beauty of God?
The Hebrew word for behold simply means, “to gaze; to look upon; to prophesy.”
The response of our hearts as we become aware of God’s presence is called worship. Worship is the response of all that we are to all that God is and does. In other words, the grace of awareness should lead us to the gaze of adoration.
Consider the creatures around the throne of God in Revelation 4.
God created creatures that were “full of eyes around and within” (Rev. 4:8) to surround His throne forever. These eyeball-creatures are perpetually singing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!”
Beloved, these gazing ones never stop singing day or night because they never stop seeing day or night. What they behold produces a perpetual response of adoration in their hearts and bodies. This is why the beauty of God is so essential to the end-time Church. The singing Church of Isaiah 42:10-12 will be fueled by a revelation of the beauty of the Son from Isaiah 42:1-9
But gazing at God’s beauty is not just about seeing His glorious appearance and radiant being. It’s also about encountering His personality, character, nature, and emotions.
One of the primary ways that we encounter the beauty of God is through meditating on His Word. We engage with the written Word in order to encounter the Living Word.
We read, study, meditate, sing, and pray God’s attributes, His emotions, His promises. This is what it looks like to gaze upon God’s beauty.
Prayer:
O Lord, open the eyes of my heart to see You in a fresh way today. Reveal the wonders, majesty, and unsurpassed beauty of Jesus to me. Holy Spirit, illuminate the Word of God to my mind and my heart. Open my eyes that I might see wondrous things from Your word (Pro. 119:18). Amen.
