To Gaze Upon the Beauty of the Lord

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Nancy Guthrie
Well, as you might guess, after I tell you that my focus over the last year or so has been on beholding the beauty of Christ, and so since we’re in the Psalms at this event, we’re going to spend these next 45 minutes hearing from a psalmist who prayed that he would behold that beauty, but before I begin, maybe I want to ask a question. If you could pray for only one thing, which that’d be hard, wouldn’t it? But if you could ask the Lord for only one thing, would it be what would it be? Would it be perhaps that all of your children and grandchildren would you, would get to see them become savingly connected to Christ? That would be good. Maybe you would pray, continue to pray for marriage, for God to revive a difficult marriage that he would sustain you, having maybe lost your spouse, maybe it would be to pray that God would heal your body or the body of someone that you care about. Well, in the time that we have together, I hope to convince you to pray for the one thing that David prayed for, because I come to think maybe it’s what we need most. In fact, it’s praying for what we were made for, asking God to accomplish in our lives what we were made for, you see, you and I were made to behold the beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ for all eternity, and so when we pray toward that one thing, I’ve come to think that it puts everything else that we want to pray for, many good things we want to pray for, but it begins to put them in proper perspective. So, open up your Bibles with me, if you would, to Psalm 27 Psalm 27 a psalm of David, and we’re going to look at this text, and we’re going to ask two questions, pretty simple questions. First of all, what was David praying for, and why? And then, secondly, should we pray for that, and why? So, first of all, what was David praying for, and why? Now, when David writes this psalm, he is being hunted by Saul. Now, Saul, at that point, is the most powerful person in Israel, and he’s driven by jealousy and fear that David is out to take his throne. But when we say Saul is after men, we don’t mean Saul alone, because Saul has an enormous army of 1000s of soldiers, and they are all pursuing David. So, it makes sense that David’s response to Saul’s intentions is fear. I think that’s the issue at hand when we open up this psalm. David is praying because he’s afraid and immediately I get that I think there’s nothing that moves me quicker to prayer than fear, but in these first few verses of the psalm we hear David, he’s he seems to be questioning or challenging this response of fear, so listen as I read the first three verses of Psalm 27 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid when evil doers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes? It’s they who stumble and fall, though a whole army encamp against me. My heart shall not fear, though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. So, David, can you see in the sense he’s thinking about the worst things he could imagine happening to him, except he’s, he’s not just imagining these threats, they are very real threats for him, as he’s hiding out from Saul’s murderous intentions. So, look there in verse two, it says, “Evil doers assail me to eat up my flesh. So he’s thinking about the possibility of a violent attack of someone who is intent on killing him. Look at verse three, though an army encamp against me, so now it’s not one violent person. 10, now he’s thinking about the sing being the singular target of 1000s of Saul’s soldiers, who all have their arrows pointed toward him. I think it’s the feeling of everyone is against me, and I’ve been there, haven’t you? Verse 10, he says, for my father and my mother have forsaken me.

Nancy Guthrie
He finds himself alone without the comfort of family and and close support, and isn’t even that at the heart of many of our fears, perhaps fears of being betrayed, fears of abandonment, fears of ending up alone. Verse 12, he says, ‘False witnesses have risen against me. So his reputation is being ruined by people who are whispering in Saul’s ear, you know, David is out to get you. He’s being lied about. So, here in this psalm, David has presented to us his very real fears, but I don’t think this psalm is simply about venting his fears. David tells us what he reminds himself of as he seeks to keep those fears from having so much power. These are the truths that help to soothe his fears, to combat his fears, to silence his fears. So, let’s look at that. First of all, he reminds us of who God is. There, verse one, the Lord is my light. So, by light, he’s saying that this is the light that enables him to see everything else in proper perspective, in the darkest places, the darkest of times. David is not abandoned to the darkness, God shines his light. Secondly, God is his salvation, there in verse one, and then later his stronghold. David knows where his security ultimately comes from, and I think it’s interesting that there, in verse one, actually already two times he asks himself, in light of this reality of who God is as his light and his salvation, his security, he asks himself, Why am I afraid, and then when you get to end of verse three, did you see that it’s almost like he, he speaks to his own soul again, and he’s like he’s telling himself, in spite of so much that inspires fear, that he can be confident. Did you see that in verse three? He can, yet I will be confident, but this confidence notice it’s not self-generated. This confidence is God dependent. It’s not self-confidence, it’s God confidence. Now I want you to notice something else in just these three verses. David doesn’t simply say that God is light and that He is salvation. No, he says God is my light, God is my salvation, God is my stronghold, so he’s not talking about some theological reality out there that doesn’t intersect with his own self, he’s talking about something that he is actually experiencing in real time, in the midst of everything else that brings fear, what he’s experiencing is God as light helping him to see things clearly. God, even as David is hiding, is saving him from what would not only take his life, but destroy his soul. Though his feelings of vulnerability are very real, his sense of security is just as real. He’s not pretending that there’s no threat; he’s seeing the threat through the perspective of the person and power of God that He is confident is bent toward saving Him and securing Him, and I want to ask you, do you. Like David, need to remind yourself in the midst of your fears of who God is to you. Well, that’s why God has given us the Psalms. What a gift. What a gift he’s given us. Words, this is amazing thing about the Psalms. I think these are words given to us from God to speak back to Him, but at the same time as we do that, these words speak to our own souls and they rouse us to praise, and they rouse us to thankfulness, to dependence, to confidence. All right, so first we’ve seen David reminds himself of who God is, his light, salvation, security in the midst of these dire threats, and it’s then that he prays now, if we’ve read the first three verses, and we don’t know where we’re going, what might we expect David to pray for? Well, I would think maybe he would pray about, pray for protection from those evil doers that he would pray for power to overcome his enemies, that he might pray for the comforts of home to be restored to him. That’s not what he prays for. Look at what he prays for in Psalm 27 four.

Nancy Guthrie
He says one thing I have asked of the Lord that I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. Now, when David states this one supreme desire to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, I think maybe I’ve heard this before. It makes me think of Moses. Do you remember Moses when he cries out to God for what he wants most, and he says to God, “Show me your glory. Remember, this isn’t it the same thing Moses wants to see all of God’s godness, so does David. What David wants to do is to be able to gaze upon the beauty, the perfections of God, and he seems to want to be able to do that, not in just some passing way. It’s like he wants to settle in there and stay where he can fix his gaze on all that God is and all that God does and all that He will do through the promised Christ. David wants to grow in his understanding of what God is doing in the world and what God is doing in his life, and he seems to get that the greater and more consistent, consistent intimacy with God, that that is what will enable him to live in a world full of potential threats without living in a constant state of incapacitating fear, and I have to say once again, this is instructive to me in my own battles with fear, and I wonder if it is for some of you too. It causes me to ask myself what is the one thing that I am searching after? Are my desires trained toward that singular desire of enjoying God’s beauty in God’s presence, because the truth is, when I am afraid, my first instinct is to begin to strategize a solution. You guys are looking at me like you’ve never done this before. Surely I’m not alone, am I? Like, like it’s going to be up to me to figure this out, and to fix things, and to keep the worst from happening, and when I think about these natural tendency. Sees of mine, I think I need some help from David. David says, what does he want? He wants to inquire in the Lord’s temple. So, what’s he saying? He’s saying, rather than depend on his own wits, his own figure it out ability, rather than look for some other kind of worldly insight, he wants to draw near to the place of God’s presence among his people, and he just wants to talk to God about everything that threatens him, everything that confuses him, everything that stumps him. Look with me a few verses later here in the Psalm, in chapter 27 verse eight, where David, it’s like we listen into a conversation between him and God. He says, ‘You have said, Seek my face, and my heart says, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek. It’s like I think, like David remembers something he read in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 429 where the Lord’s instruction to his people, as they were preparing to go into the land, was to seek him all of their days, that was the Lord’s instruction, and so when when David says, “Here, you said seek my face, and I’ve said, “Your Lord, your face, Lord, Joyce. It’s like David is saying, “I hear you, and I really want to do that instead of living a life of feeding on my very real fears, I want to plant myself right in front of you, where I can hear you speak to me, and you can teach me your way, and where I can constantly pour out my concerns to you and find my security in you. You know, you and I are surrounded by so many self-help books and relational experts, and I mean, you know, counselors, therapists, good advice, gurus, I mean, can you really believe how many ordinary people have the chutzpah to put themselves out on Instagram to tell you to, how did you do just about everything you know, whether it’s how to clean your pots and pans, or organize your house, or what you should buy on Amazon. Don’t need the help, how to fix your relationship.

Nancy Guthrie
I mean, we got promises of protection from exercise enthusiasts and protein shake makers and home alarm systems and insurance companies, but all of these things, they just offer an illusion of security, they can never really deal with our with the root of our fears. What we really need is David’s solid confidence and single-minded desire to set our gaze on the beauty of the Lord, on the security of His promises, and the comfort of his presence, and the wisdom of his ways, and the assurance of his acceptance, and the abundance of his mercy, and the finished work of his son. How beautiful David’s prayer is to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. And when we come to verse 13, look there with me. He appears confident that his prayer is going to be answered. He says, I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. This kind of helps us if we’re still wondering what is the beauty of the Lord. He’s now said it to us in slightly different words that add to our understanding. Gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and now he says, I am going to look upon the goodness of the Lord. Now, when we hear something like that in the Bible, we read about the goodness of the Lord, and we think, well, like I know what goodness is, don’t need to consult a commentary on that, and yet what we always have to be asking ourselves is what does the person writing that mean by that word, because I don’t want to just fill it up with all. I’m going to define as goodness, and so here we would ask ourselves, perhaps, where have we heard other Bible writers write about God’s goodness, and again I think of Moses, because you remember what happens when Moses says, show me your glory. Remember what happens, and God says, I’m going to hide you behind that rock, and He says, I’m going to make all my what goodness pass before you, and I’m going to proclaim to you my name, the Lord, and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. This is the goodness that David expects, the beauty he longs to see David believes that God is going to be gracious to him. He’s going to get so much more than he could ever deserve, and even though in this moment he’s experiencing profound difficulty, he still believes he is going to experience the goodness of God in this world, and that confidence sustains him. David expects that the future is filled up with the goodness of God, and that confident hope has the power to still his very present fierce now. The psalm ends. I’m not sure if David is speaking to those around him or if he’s more like speaking to his own soul, but look there in verse 14 he says, Wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. Wait now. This is not passive waiting. This is very active waiting. He is speaking to his own soul, telling himself to eagerly seek the Lord, trust the Lord as he waits for God to act, and as he does, his heart will take courage. All right, so we’ve looked at this psalm and this prayer that David prayed, and the perilous situation he was in, but that can perhaps feel his situation of being pursued by Saul can seem very far away from our own circumstances, but if we want to zero in on that particular prayer that he longs to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in inquires temple. Let’s consider our second question, which is, is this a prayer that we should pray? And I’m probably going to shock you when I say yes, aren’t I? Yeah, am I shocking you? Yes, yes. Why? Because you and I have no greater need than to behold the beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When we do, it’s our future breaking into the present. You see, maybe you’ve never thought about it this way, but if you are a Christian. The way that you became a Christian was by beholding the beauty of Christ.

Nancy Guthrie
The Spirit gave you eyes to see the beauty of His love for you, of His sacrifice for you, of His intentions toward you, His promises to you, and your response was, I want that, I want in on that, and on that day the spirit sealed you to Christ, so that you can never be separated from Him, but an even deeper truth is that in reality your destiny was determined not by that decision you made on that day but rather a decision made by the Father before the foundations of the world. This is what Paul. Tells us in Ephesians that you were chosen in Christ before the foundations of the world, and Paul also tells us way back there, eternity future, he tells us what to expect way out there in eternity future, what you were chosen for, what was I chosen for you, were chosen to one day be holy and blameless before him. Do you hear that last part? One day, this is what this is what you were made for, to one day be holy and blameless before Him, God by His Spirit. The Father chose you. The Spirit gave you eyes to see His beauty with the intention that one day you really will in glorified flesh stand before Him to gaze upon the beauty of God in the very human face of Jesus Christ. Wow, so gazing upon his beauty is the way you became a Christian, and it captures the future that you were made for, but the truth is, it really is everything in between. It’s really the essence of the ongoing Christian life. It’s the way you grow as a Christian. Paul writes that we all with unveiled face are what do you remember, we are beholding the glory of the Lord, and that we are being, you remember, yes, transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. Now, as I encourage you to think about making David’s prayer your prayer. This one thing I ask to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. Maybe you’re thinking, I don’t know, not sure I ever see that fancy prayer. making it at the top of my list. I mean, I’ve got a lot of urgent things that are sending me to my knees, and many to me more urgent concerns that are weighing on my heart, and once again, I would say to you, my friends, this is why we have the Psalms, because these Psalms are training us how to talk to God. God has given us words in the Psalms to use to say back to Him, so they are training us how we should talk to him, how we should sing to him, how we should cry out to him, and I just, I just want to suggest something. Maybe you would like to give this a try, maybe you might decide, okay, over the next seven days, every time I pray, whether it’s over meals with the people I’m here with at the conference, or meals with my family, or it’s in the morning as you start your day, or at the end of the day as you end your day. I wonder how your prayer life might change if every time you began your prayer you said, Lord, the one thing I desire, the one thing that I seek after, is to dwell in Your house, in Your presence. All the days of my life, I want to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. I want to see everything about you. I want to see and know and understand all of your gifts and perfections, and I want to stay there, make my home there, and pour out my heart to you. You see, you’d be saying to the Lord more than everything else, I’m preparing to talk to you about, as I come to you in prayer. Everything that’s going on in my life. Here’s what I want most of all, because I know that as I begin this way, it’s going to put everything else I’m about to pray to you about in proper perspective. It’s going to increase my confidence that you are going to do right by me in response to my prayers. You’re going to be saying to the Lord, I want to be near you every day, all day. I don’t want you on. Periphery of my life.

Nancy Guthrie
I want my life to actually revolve around you. I want you to be present in my conversations and in my endeavors every day. I want to become more captivated by the beauty of your ways and the beauty of your work and the beauty of your plans for this world and for my life, and so instead of coming to you to demand answers to my prayers, I’m just coming to you with all of my questions and all of my desires, and I’m laying them before you, knowing that I can trust you to do right by me. I can trust you to do right by my family. I can trust you to do right by my church. I can trust you to do right by my country. I can trust you to do right in the world. How do you think your prayers might progress after starting that way? Do you think they might sound a little bit different if we welcome the Lord to use this psalm to shape our desires, so that our desire to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord grows. Surely we will find our eyes transfixed on the one place where God has promised that we can behold that beauty now as we wait for that day when we see Him face to face. Where has God promised that we can see His beauty and Right here, right here. Here’s where we place our gaze for now. Here’s where we place our gaze, as we want to see His beauty. We see His beauty in the Word, in the way Christ is revealed to us, you see. We study the Bible not simply to gain knowledge, but because we want to behold the beauty of Christ from the very first pages of the Pentateuch, where we read in Genesis one that God spoke, let there be light. We behold Christ, recognizing Him as the Word speaking the light piercing the darkness. In Exodus we see the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world in the shadow of all of those lambs who died and whose blood was painted on those doorways on the first Passover night, we see him as all as the point of all of the sacrifices and feasts of Leviticus in the provision of manna and water from a rock in numbers, as the only person who has ever completely obeyed Deuteronomy’s command to love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. How beautiful is Christ in the Pentateuch. As we move into the historical books, we behold Christ as the true and better Joshua, who is leading his people into a better rest in a greater promised land, as the king the people needed in the days of the judges, as the kinsman redeemer greater than Boaz. In the book of Ruth, we meet David in First and Second Samuel as the boy from Bethlehem who becomes king over Israel, and we begin to long for the Son of David, who will one day rule the nations, and he will rule with the kind of justice and righteousness that all of the other kings who descend from David, that we read about in First and Second Kings and first and second Chronicles never could we see Christ in the shadows of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we see that Christ is bringing a people home to himself, he is building his church not with ruined stones in Jerusalem but with living stones, the lives of those He has redeemed, the people with whom He intends to dwell in the New Jerusalem. He is preserving His people for Himself through the work of a mediator, even greater than Esther. How beautiful. You can we behold the beauty of Christ in the wisdom books, he’s there as the more innocent sufferer than Job, as the redeemer that Job is confident he will see with his eyes when he stands before him in resurrected flesh. We behold Christ as Psalms, blessed man, as the anointed one set on God’s holy hill, as the shepherd who restores our soul, as the king who is worthy of all of our worship. In the sound but limited wisdom of prophets of Proverbs, we are made to long for the one who will be wisdom incarnate. He will infuse our lives with the meaning that eluded the teacher or preacher of Ecclesiastes.

Nancy Guthrie
He will love his bride with a love that exceeds the love of the bridegroom of Song of Songs. How beautiful. beautiful Isaiah sets the pace for the prophetical books. For Isaiah, the beauty of Christ is not only in the king high and lifted up in the heavenly temple that Isaiah saw, but he’s the suffering servant high and lifted up, pierced for our transgressions, and he’s the divine warrior who will come and cleanse the world of its evil and usher in the new creation. Jeremiah’s promise of a new heart will be fulfilled by Christ, as will his lamentations over Jerusalem for her refusal to come to him. Jesus will be the first fruits of a resurrection that the raising of the dry bones in Ezekiel pointed toward. He is the stone cut by no human hand in Daniel’s dream that will crush every kingdom on the earth, so that his kingdom will fill the old whole earth. We behold the beauty of Christ in Hosea, who relentlessly loves an unfaithful bride, in Joel as one who will bear the judgment his people deserve on a day of thick darkness, in Amos as one who will end in the end, bring a fiery judgment in Obadiah, as one who will bring an end to all those who set themselves against God and against His people. Now, Jonah is the only Old Testament prophet that Jesus directly compares Himself to. You remember, Jesus said, for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. When Micah asked that penetrating question, he says that God passes over the remnants of of his inheritance. We want to ask, how can a just God do that, and it leads us to behold Christ as the one who will bear the judgment our transgression deserves. In Nahum we see Christ going out as the divine warrior to carry out God’s wrath against his enemies, and then Habakkuk calls us to see Christ going out for the salvation of his people. In Zechariah and Zephaniah, we behold Christ coming in loneliness in Habakkuk, we see him coming in glory, in the latter glory that is greater than the former glory of Solomon’s temple, and interestingly, when we come to the final words of the final chapter of the final book of the Old Testament, we discover that there is no resolution to its story, the story it has been telling at the very end of Malachi. God warns that unless his people’s sin is dealt with, he will come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. Wow, what a hard, sad way for the Old Testament to end, but that’s that’s how it ends, and we’re left wondering, is there any hope for his people’s sins to be cleansed, for his people to love him, for the curse to be dealt with once and for all, so that one day we really could behold him face to. Face, and then we turn, and we open up the New Testament. We’ve been beholding Him in all kinds of shadow, and now in the New Testament, we behold the beauty of Christ in substance, in the person of Jesus Christ. Here we find the person who meets all the unmet needs of the Old Testament. In Hebrew, we behold Christ as the Son of David, born as a baby into the world, and He’s bringing in an upside-down kingdom. In Mark, He’s a servant who came to give his life as a ransom for many. In Luke, he’s there as the Savior who has come to seek and save the lost, and in John, he is the Word made flesh dwelling among us. In the book of Acts, we behold Christ ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven, and He is overseeing the spread of His gospel, beginning in Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and to all the earth. How beautiful. Then we come to the epistles, the letters of the New Testament, and in writing to the Romans, Paul helps us to behold Christ as the righteousness of God revealed apart from the law that is received by faith. In First and Second Corinthians, he’s the wisdom and power of God that stands in stark contrast to worldly wisdom.

Nancy Guthrie
We rejoice when we get to Galatians that this crisis of the curse is finally dealt with? Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. How, by becoming a curse for us, and our limited perspectives about this world and what’s happening are expanded when we read in Ephesians that God’s ultimate plan is to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. We’re enabled to make sense of our own suffering when in Philippians we behold Christ’s humiliation followed by his exaltation, his suffering giving way to glory, and if we had been wondering when we started this trek in the beginning in Genesis, and thought maybe we could behold the beauty of Christ in, in the book of Genesis, were encouraged when we get to the book of Colossians to read that it is Christ is the one by whom all things were created. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, they assure us that we are not crazy to think that the Christ who came will come again. The pastoral letters of Timothy and Titus remind us that Christ has made us part of a family made up of brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, a family who loves and serves each other, and in Philemon we behold Him as a mediator reconciling us to God. The book of He of Hebrews assures us once again that we were right to behold Christ in the shadows of the Old Testament, in things like the tabernacle and the sacrifices, and it helps to see that Christ is the substance of all of those things, and that His work is far better than all of the shadows ever were. James shows us that Christ’s mercy triumphs over judgment. Peter convinces us that we can endure suffering as we stand firm for Christ. John invites us to find forgiveness in Christ, Jude promises will be kept by Christ, and finally we hear Christ himself speak in the very last pages of Revelation, where He says, Behold, I am making all things new. You, how beautiful can you see that every day as we open up the word, it’s as if the doors to the dwelling place of God are being opened up for us, so that we can gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, as we do. It enables us to see through the experience. Experience and prayer of David into the experience and prayers of David’s greater son. We can hear the desire of David to dwell in the house of the Lord all of the days of his life, expressed by his greater son when Jesus tells his parents at 12 years of age, having lingered behind at the temple in Jerusalem. Did you not know that I must be at my Father’s house? You see, Jesus desired to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in His temple. We look in verse five of chapter 27 we and we read that David was confident that God would hide him in his shelter in the day of trouble. Will Jesus will not be hidden in God’s sheltering presence in the day of trouble. Verse six, David says he believes his head will be lifted up above all of his enemies around him. Well, Jesus will not be lifted up above his enemies, he will become the target of the murderous intentions of his enemies. While in verse seven, David says he’s confident that when he cries out, the Lord will answer him and will not hide his face from him. Jesus will cry out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As God indeed hides his face from his own son. In verse 12, David is sure that he will not be given over to his adversaries, but of course Jesus will be given up for the will of his adversaries. False witnesses will rise up against him, will breathe out violence against him.

Nancy Guthrie
My friends, the more intently we gaze upon the beauty of the Lord by gazing into His word, the more we will see that the reason David can be confident that he will look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living is because Jesus entered into the land of the dying, and he absorbed in himself all of the wrath that David deserved, and all the wrath that I deserve and that you deserve, so that God can pour out His goodness on David and on you and on me to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord is to gaze upon the finished work of Christ on your behalf, and when you do, you find you have nothing else to fear. So, let’s pray. This Lord, I need you to give me the grace to set my gaze on you. I want to keep my soul’s focus on you and your beauty. I want to consider you, abide in you. I don’t just want things from you, I want you. Let’s wait on the Lord. And the good news I have for you, as I close, is that one day the waiting will be over. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face one day, when the waiting is over, David’s prayer and our prayers will have been answered in a full and final way. We are going to see the face that John writes about seeing in Revelation chapter one. Do you remember this? He recorded his vision, and he said that he looked upon Jesus, and that his face was like the sun. Oh, to bask in that light, in that radiant beauty and glory for all eternity, Paul says to us, and when He appears, we shall be like Him. You and I are going to be beautiful, beautiful, because we will see him as he is, so beautiful. Thank you. I’ll pray real quickly. Lord, would you set our heart’s gaze to you toward you, that we might see the beauty of your person. Me and of your work, that it might vanquish the fears that we have in this world. Put everything else into proper perspective, Lord. We long for this day that’s coming. We want to wait for that day. We’re setting our hopes on that day, when finally we really will, with glorified eyes, gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in the still human face of Jesus Christ. We long for that day. In your name, I pray. Amen.