There is something to be said for seeing. It only gives you part of the story. It only shows the snapshot moment in front of you and hides the context that gives sight meaning. That is not what El Roi experiences. He is all-knowing. God is an omniscient and loving Lord. His wrath is holy, just as His mercy is. He sees the very depths and darkest parts of every situation and of every person’s sinful thoughts, words, and actions. His sight never wavers.
When I find myself turning my face at my own actions, blushing at my thoughts, shuddering at the darkness inside of me, He sees. More than that, He knows. The tangled root of sin threatening to entrap me forever is not hidden from view. I am seen with purity, intimately seen. Under another’s eye, this may cause shame, but with God, He offers healing from the nakedness we lay before Him. We don’t get to hide sin and take refuge in Him. It would be a useless pursuit anyway. He already knows. We don’t need to be willing for the sight of the Lord to pierce through our defenses and reveal the sludge of sin residing in us. It is wholly and completely known by El Roi, who sees all.
The more fitting question is whether everything within us is surrendered. Do we take those secret things out of the box we have erected in our souls as safeguards? Accountability can go far in this struggle, opening up, so another can offer up reproof, comfort, and prayer. Those are steps, but as have heard many people say, sin is vertical. It is an offense against God. As such, it must be resolved with God before any other person.
Remembering He already sees the sin; the heart rot beneath the surface, sin we are so preoccupied with is also in His view. The full context, not an excerpt or summary, is in sight. Coming to Him with what He already knows should produce less fear, not more. Yet we shy away, believing that somehow a full examination has not yet been made. Could the worst of the worst be hiding beneath it all? Do we think God, like others, doesn’t know the complete truth, and if He did, He may revoke His saving mercy? God’s holiness doesn’t obstruct His view. The Righteous Judge sees all; more than we see ourselves. We can rest assured that His ruling doesn’t change; it stands.
Unlike a judge in a court of law, bits and pieces distorted by both sides aren’t presented. Your interactions aren’t limited to how many times you go before Him. The second or fifteenth offense has no additional bearing on the ultimate judgment. Our pride may take hold at that moment, and we could falsely believe it is because God sees our goodness and considers it. The positive aspects of our personality can deter focus on everything else. El Roi sees all; a seeing that consists of a deep, penetrating knowing. He does not get distracted and is not swayed by gifts and talents you feebly attempt to use for His glory. He gave those to you. All that which you want to place saving pride in comes from God. There is no rescue as He reveals the pit of darkness within us, but we have to hold fast to the truth that it is for our good.
But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:14-17
One of the defining aspects of Christ’s Lordship over us is our willingness to allow the light to permeate through us like cleansing fire. Knowing of Him is not enough. The Word says even the demons know of Him and shudder (James 2:19). They however, have no desire to have the Great I Am clear out their hearts. That is a process only the Holy Spirit can initiate. All those the Father gives to the Son will come to this saving faith that allows unashamed rejection of darkness in our lives.
This is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.” John 3: 19-21
I would not be honest if I didn’t recognize the fear in this pursuit of cleanliness and sanctification. It is said that perfect love casts out all fear. God is perfect love and offers it to us. The failure is not on His part, but ours. Our ever shifting reputations are on the line before people, but people are a vapor in the wind. We can’t prioritize people over our eternal souls. Rejecting the love and mercy of God in His forgiveness of sins is a very tricky spot to be in. Can you follow and abide in Him, calling Him Lord, if you can only release what you deem culturally acceptable sins?
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 1 John 4:15-18
We must examine ourselves if we are to remain in Him. It is vital that we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal what is truly in the depths of our hearts that prevent us from releasing all of ourselves to Him. The key is that He already knows. I think it is the light of public acknowledgement that we are so fearful of. In this, we must recognize the lordship of people in our lives. From those standing next to us in worship that we want to impress with just the right level of enthusiasm, to those who have the power to put is leadership or take it away.
Paul didn’t have these fears. He was open about his past in public. He didn’t lessen his own guilt by using a vague synopsis before a mob of people that was primed and ready to attack, he poured out the depths of sin in his heart. A murderer, abuser, guilty of the wrongful imprisonment of Christians, and participant and approving party in the stoning of Stephen. Then he had his Damascus road experience. These moments of encountering Christ had such a profound change in Paul’s life that the testimony of who he was stayed shinning in the glorious light of Christ as evidence of His forgiving power. When Paul faced the mob, they wanted to kill Him. There was a frenzy of angry Jews throwing clothes and dirty, ready to attack. Paul must have had at least a little inkling that this would be their reaction. God had met him in such a profound way it not only shifted, it rewrote who Paul was. Past intact and uncovered for the Gospel’s sake, with God penning the story of his future.
He continued, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strictness of our ancestral law. I was zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way to the death, arresting and putting both men and women in jail, as both the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. After I received letters from them to the brothers, I traveled to Damascus to arrest those who were there and bring them to Jerusalem to be punished. “As I was traveling and approaching Damascus, about noon an intense light from heaven suddenly flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ “I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one you are persecuting.’ Now those who were with me saw the light, but they did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. “I said, ‘What should I do, Lord?’ “The Lord told me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told everything that you have been assigned to do.’ “Since I couldn’t see because of the brightness of the light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and went into Damascus. Someone named Ananias, a devout man according to the law, who had a good reputation with all the Jews living there, came and stood by me and said, ‘Brother Saul, regain your sight.’ And in that very hour I looked up and saw him. And he said, ‘The God of our ancestors has appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the words from his mouth, since you will be a witness for him to all people of what you have seen and heard. And now, why are you delaying? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’ “After I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and saw him telling me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’ “But I said, ‘Lord, they know that in synagogue after synagogue I had those who believed in you imprisoned and beaten. And when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I stood there giving approval and guarding the clothes of those who killed him.’ “He said to me, ‘Go, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” They listened to him up to this point. Then they raised their voices, shouting, “Wipe this man off the face of the earth! He should not be allowed to live!” Acts 22:3-22
This level of surrender can only be done with the prompting and sustaining power of the Holy Spirit. Though death threats came, God embolden Paul and chose him to be the contributing author of the New Testament, behind Luke. Much of this during times of imprisonment or personal attack. He never lied, hid, or made excuses for his past. He pulled it close and kept in the light as a constant reminder of the depths of his sinfulness. It kept God’s redemption forefront in his mind. He, at one point, went blind. I believe he knew this physical blindness matched his spiritual one. When sight came, it changed everything. It was the working of the Holy Spirit. He initiated saving faith that made it possible for Paul to step into his destiny. Knowing he deserved wrath, but was spared eternal punishment by the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, he surrendered everything. The God who saved him is the one whose Spirit he rested in. Whether a mob determined to fast until he died or he was imprisoned for the Gospel’s sake, he surrendered.
When it was morning, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who had formed this plot. These men went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn curse that we won’t eat anything until we have killed Paul. So now you, along with the Sanhedrin, make a request to the commander that he bring him down to you as if you were going to investigate his case more thoroughly. But, before he gets near, we are ready to kill him.” Acts 23:12-15
I want to and can know a surrender like this. A type of surrender that is not afraid to lose it all as Christ gently opens my heart and brings the dark secrets of my heart to the light. God already sees them. The childhood rape that brought so much shame and even more excuses for future promiscuity; He sees it. The struggle with anorexia and bulimia; He sees it. He sees the deep cavern of sin and reveals a long history of self harm and suicide. He brings to the light my jail time for shoplifting, my struggle with pornography and all the pride and materialism that I used to cover all the truths buried in my heart. My disobedience and stubbornness, the idols of self, comfort, and others I held in higher regard than Christ, it all has to be pulled from the dark. His sight was never obscured of these things. The testimony of God’s redemptive power in my life, though I was saved from a young age, doesn’t read like a refreshing pallet cleanser. I had periods of where I was disillusioned, searching for God as Christians around me applauded my skillfulness while ignoring my sins. But God broke me. It took time outside of church and having a son that God’s Spirit called me to Himself. He placed me in a body of believers who truly care about spiritual growth. He continues to clean out my heart of darkness and fill it with His glorious light. It is a beautiful walk in freedom to let go. It is freeing not to be bound by the persistent question of whether the love experienced in Christ is depended on keeping secrets hidden inside.
We can’t love the darkness that covers our sins and love the Light. As John 3:19 says, that is the judgment against those whom He came to save. Spewing out truth isn’t how one lives in the light either. It would be nice if it were that easy. Many of us know those who are open books, but they wear their sin as a source of pride. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to pull from the depths of who were are and reveal our sin for the sake of acknowledgement and surrender. The more we see the unfathomed and profound sinfulness of ourselves, the more visible the height and breadth of Christ’s love if for us. In light of the glorious cross our shame and hiding are meaningless, because God saw all of it and in complete competency, full judgment, unsurpassed righteousness, and the ultimate level of holiness chose to redeem.
To fully know God, not just know of God, we need that extent of a relationship that bares our sinful souls before God. Our cry for Abba Father must be derived from a heart willing to be cleansed. It is by the Spirit of God the deed of the flesh our put to death, and we become led by God’s Holy Spirit. He testifies to our adoption by the One and True God.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Romans 8:12-17
God sees us. He knows us. God loves us. His Spirit draws us to Christ and a saving faith in Him. We are spared from the wrath of God through the grace and mercy that is appropriated through the righteousness of Christ. Every sin released to the light of who He is an opportunity for us to know Him more. The Holy Spirit will guide us through as we seek to know and abide in Him without fear. His perfect love casts out all fear so we don’t have to fear the exposure that comes from walking in the Light.