The Beauty of His Holiness

The Beauty of His Holiness
I had an experience with the Lord a number of years ago
similar to Isaiah’s. This particular experience occurred in the office
of my laboratory as I was praying. (Before God called me
into a full-time ministry I was in the medical profession. I owned
and operated a medical lab and x-ray office.) As I was talking to
the Lord, He appeared before me. I saw Jesus’ face and immediately
was captivated by His eyes. When I looked into them, it was
breathtaking. I saw infinite love, divine beauty, gentleness and
tender kindness. I saw unlimited authority in those soft eyes! It
was wonderful! Words cannot adequately describe all I saw in
Him. There isn’t any thing or person on this earth that compares
with His matchlessness!

My reaction to His presence, I will never forget. I fell down
on the floor, just as Isaiah did, and began weeping, thinking of
how unclean I was. I felt as if I were a puddle of mud at His feet.
I began to cry unto God and say, “Oh Lord, there is nothing good
in me. Anything that is good in me is what you have placed there
by your Spirit; but there is so much more in my flesh that needs to
go, so that you can live in me. Oh Lord, crucify me, let me die, let
me die. Let me die to all my ways as I want to live for you. Lord,
when I get to heaven, I want to be close to you; just let me be
close to you. No matter what must be done in my life here, Jesus,
do it so I might be close to you. If I could just wash your feet
throughout eternity for the privilege of gazing into your eyes, I
would gladly accept that duty. Oh Lord, let me die that I might be
close to you!”

From that time on my Christian walk with the Lord has never
been the same. I have had such a love for the Lord that my heart’s
desire has been to serve Him and delight in His will. I know that I
could not even have prayed the above prayer except that it was
the work of the Holy Spirit within me. Man cannot cry out for
death unless God’s Spirit enables him to do so.

Sometimes we try to gain favor with God by our works,
thinking if we do enough good things we can please Him. It is not
our works that will attain a position in God, it’s our relationship.
Our works come as an overflow of our being with Jesus. As we
fellowship with our Father, we begin to take on His nature. We
desire that nature when we have seen the beauty of the Father.
I caught a glimpse of that beauty and that is what I wanted,
even though I thought, “I am so weak, I could never be like Him.
How could I ever attain anything in God, knowing all my faults
and failures? It will be too hard; I will be doing good just to get to
heaven.”

The Lord revealed to me these were thoughts the devil was
bringing to my mind, and that it was possible to overcome and
walk in victory. Though I was weak, He was strong. I needed that
revelation of who I was in Christ or rather who He is in me.
He wanted me to know, Ye are of God, little children, and have
overcome them: because greater is he (the Holy Spirit) that is
in you, than he (the devil) that is in the world (1 John 4:4). All
He asks us to do is to yield ourselves completely to Him, and He
will do the overcoming. He desires us to commit our lives totally,
and He will do the changing and the molding. He changes our old
natures to His new nature; old desires pass away and we have
new desires.

Some people are afraid that if they yield everything to God
they will lose their will and their personality. This is not true. He
simply changes our will and our desires and brings our personalities
to bloom. We really cannot become all that He intends until
we give Him the right to begin that work. He creates within us a
new nature.

We sometimes think that walking with God is hard when, in
actuality, it is easy. We are the ones that make it hard. We often
struggle and try so hard to please God with our good works and
attempts to change our old nature, while His way is not difficult at
all. Matthew 11:29-30 says, Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
By this verse we can see if we are yoked with Him and have ceased
to be rebellious to the will of God, we will have an easy walk with
Him. The oxen represents a “broken” or tamed animal. We, in our
old nature are untamed, but as we yield to the Lord, we will learn
“brokenness.”

We are so concerned many times that if we go left instead of
right, the Lord will be so angry with us and strike us with a big
stick for missing Him. Our ideas of God are so warped. He is a
beautiful Person and when we are truly trying to please Him, He
is not angry with us.

If we think He is a harsh taskmaster, we miss the beauty of
loving Him and fellowshipping with Him. If we allow Him to work
in our lives, we find that we can overcome all obstacles and every
problem the enemy uses to discourage us. In Him, we can do all
things. Philippians 4:13 says, I can do all things through Christ
which strengtheneth me. If I know who God is, that is, His nature,
His power and His love, and if I know that in me there is no
good thing (so that I am not tempted to be lifted in pride and take
credit for things that should be credited to Jesus), then I also must
know that in Him I have all of His power and authority to overcome
anything. Praise God for this beautiful truth! We do not
need to lead defeated Christian lives, but can walk in victory every
day!

It is essential to have these revelations in the proper order,
too.
If we discover “Who God is” without the other two revelations,
we may have an abnormal view of God. If we find out “who
we are” without the knowledge of God, we will not be able to
bear it. That is why so many commit suicide. They see themselves
and can find no answers within, and therefore see no way out of
their problems but to kill themselves. If we discover “who we are
in Christ or who Christ is in us” before we get a glimpse of ourselves,
we become lifted in pride, soon forgetting that it is not us
accomplishing the works of God, but it is the name of Jesus and
the power of the Holy Spirit. So we need to make our discovery
of God first, ourselves second, and then ourselves in Christ third.
With these three revelations we truly can be overcomers.