WE DON’T SEEK HIS FACE

Wednesday 27 November

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (NKJV)

When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.” Psalm 27:8 (NKJV)

When we read the scriptures in the Old Testament and the gospels. and the written word in the New Testament, it is critical that we understand the differences between them. In the Old Testament the prophets would seek the face of God periodically to be instructed in what steps they should take.

The gospels tell us to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness’. Remember the gospels are an extension of the Old Testament for the most part. What about the believer in Christ? We are operating under the New Testament. Do we seek His kingdom or His face. If not then why not?

Let’s look at Matthew 6:33 in the light of the finished work of Christ. We don’t seek the kingdom because we are in the kingdom and the kingdom is in us. Kingdom means the king’s domain which is the believer who has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Neither do we seek His righteousness. The Bible clearly shows us that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

You don’t seek outwardly for something God has made you inwardly. That doesn’t make any sense on any level, does it. The last part ‘and all these things shall be added unto you’ does not apply either as I am an heir with God and a joint heir with Christ of all that is packaged in the gift of salvation.

Nor are we like David or the other Old Testament prophets who the Spirit rested upon from time to time to perform certain tasks. We are those in whom the Spirit of God resides as one new creation with Him and we ‘bear the image of the heavenly’ (1 Corinthians 15:49b). Jesus is the Father’s express image and we are one Spirit with Him What does this tell us?

We don’t seek the face of God because we are the face of God. 2 Corinthians 4:6 says ‘for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’. We are the ones that truly carry His image and likeness as new creations in Christ.

To be accurate in our understanding of the gospel, we must always interpret the Old Testament and the gospels through the lens of the finished work of Christ to determine if it applies to us as New Testament believers.

APPLICATION

Come to the understanding that the gospel of grace is all in past tense because it is about what Christ has done. Anything else is a false or inaccurate gospel.