Beholding God While Walking by Faith

From: Sterling D. Allan <sterlingda@greaterthings.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 9:08 AM
Subject: {888} Seeing God vs. Walking by Faith

Walt and David Z.,

Add me to the list of former frustrated seekers of the face of God and his angels.

I, like Walt, fully believe that this privilege will someday be granted to me in abundance. 

Why do I say in one breath that I am a "former frustrated seeker" and yet in the next breath say that that privilege has not yet been granted?  It is because the frustration of not having yet had that privilege has been significantly diminished for the following reasons.

One of the major revelations I was given personally, while doing my study on the doctrine of Christ, came when I was pondering III Nephi 12.

Here Christ had appeared and ministered to those who had been gathered at the temple, let each one of them feel the marks in his hands and in his feet, and would soon bestow magnificent blessings upon them including the baptism of fire that they desired, as well as the ministering of angels and the healing of all their sick.

Yet in 12:1,2 he says, "...Therefore blessed are ye if ye shall believe in me and be baptized, AFTER that ye have seen me and know that I am. [...BUT], more blessed are they who shall believe in your words because that ye shall testify that ye have seen me, and that ye know that I am...."

Yes, those who heart the testimony even without having the eyewitness first would likewise be baptized by fire and by the Holy Ghost, and they too could eventually behold his face.

The clincher is that to believe without seeing, and then later seeing, is far more blessed than believing after seeing.

What occurred to me with great force at that point was that my willingness to do all that I have done for the Lord, without having yet seen his face or that of one of his angels, was a far more difficult and blessed path (for me) than if I had beheld his face early on and then had that to ride on when things got hard.

I have come to believe that before I was born I requested that my beholding of the face of my Jesus and of his angels would only come after a very long period of sustained obedience to the will of God, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.  I wanted the more difficult path.  I wanted to please the Lord by my obedience without first requiring a big manifestation before I would comply with his will.

I can't help but think too that I requested that like the captain who is willing to go down with the ship after helping everyone board the lifeboats, that I also requested that I have to walk by faith so long as others deserving are also having to walk by faith because of this state of condemnation we are laboring under generally for neglecting the Book of Mormon, which clearly teaches that this privilege of beholding the face of God is available to all and that we should seek it.

So friends in frustration, hang in there.  It's going to happen.  He won't withhold his face forever, though in a little wrath he holds it from wayward Israel at present (for the most part).

Furthermore, I believe that one of the lessons we are to learn is that God is in each one of us, and that to a certain extent everywhere we turn, every person we see, is God, for God is in them -- or at least can be if they will but let him shine.

That is what the indwelling of the Holy Ghost is all about, letting God's face shine through our own.

I am convinced that in the city of the New Jerusalem, where God and angels will freely walk in our midst, that one of the reasons for this will be that we will see the godliness and angelic nature in each other (which nature is a gift that comes because of the salvation of Christ).

Just a few thoughts on the subject.

Have a wonderful day my fellow veiled angelic/godly beings.

Sterling

Seeing God in Your Neighbor

From: Randall Shortridge <rds@acsu.buffalo.edu>
To: David's Outcasts <davids_outcasts@listbot.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 8:17 AM
Subject: Re: 888 Zaitzeff testimony

David's Outcasts - http://www.GreaterThings.com/OpenForum/Davids_Outcasts.htm

Maybe one does not see God because one is not looking in the right place.  God does not hide from us, but we hide from him.  Most of the Jews didn't recognize Jesus, although he walked among them.

Each person etertains angels unawares.  Each person often walks a road to Emmanus with the Lord right beside him, but knows it not.  Maybe like the Jews, we look for a person with outward power and glory, but miss the one who comes as a stranger in our midst. 

Cease looking outwardly and judging by appearances.  Begin to look into hearts.  Start to notice strangers in your midst.  Peer deeply into
their eyes, which are called the windows of the soul.  When you see someone who looks like everyone else... just a stranger in a crowd of strangers.... but, their eyes are full of fire... then begin to ask yourself whether that person is just another mortal.

Randall

From: David Skousen <davids@natr.com>
To: 'David's Outcasts' <davids_outcasts@listbot.com>
Date: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 11:07 AM
Subject: RE: {888} Seeing God vs. Walking by Faith

David's Outcasts - http://www.GreaterThings.com/OpenForum/Davids_Outcasts.htm

Sterling's exposition is very helpful—

. . . I was pondering III Nephi 12... "[BUT] more blessed are they who shall believe in your words because that ye shall testify that ye have seen me, and that ye know that I am...."

This engendered a new thought for me: Seeing Christ is not anywhere near as important as hearing, digesting and living  the Word in order to be like Christ. So hearing the Word in the above scripture can be interpreted in two ways, (1) hearing without seeing Christ  requires more faith because you have to work at building your faith in someone you've never met in mortality, but even better (2) without the Words of Christ you cannot progress to be like Christ.  Hence, in this sense, hearing the Word is far better than seeing the Christ. And again, whoever hears and lives the Word becomes (i.e., "knows") the Christ, and in this sense "sees" him without needing a vision of the outward form in order to believe.

In this sense, seeing the face of God is not the best way to know God, for it is only His "facade," or face. The best way to "see" God is to be like God. To know is to be. Seeing God's face is only an introduction to Who He really is.

--David S.