Bold enough to look.

   Greetings to you in Christ Jesus.  This morning's devotion included Psalm 27.  Verses 1, 7 and 8 got me thinking.  Verse one starts with, "The LORD is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?"  Now while these are words of comfort reminding us that because we have God we really do not have to fear anything in this life.  Except God.  All of the commandment explanations start with we should fear and love God... So we have a God who we should fear and love, but then because we do fear and love Him we don't have to fear anything.  This is one of those places where our faith is so rich and complex that at times we could almost be tempted to say different passages are contradicting each other.  But then as I read verses 7 and 8 I was immediately reminded of Moses.  In Exodus 3 with the story of the burning bush, Moses falls on his face to not look at the bush because he is scared to look at God.  He does fear the Lord.  However, in Exodus 33, we find Moses asking to see the full glory of God.  God agrees and lets Moses see His backside but God will not let Moses see His face.  We see Moses going from being to terrified to even look at a bush to later being bold enough to ask to see God's face.  What changed?  Moses knew God much better and was in a relationship with Him by chapter 33.
   So in Psalm 27, in verses 7 and 8 it speaks about our heart seeking to see the face of God.  We like Moses should fear the Lord knowing He is the Lord Almighty. This is why Luther includes fear and love God in all the commandments because as we are learning His ways from the fundamentals of the Small Catechism, we should fear Him out of respect for Him as our God.  However, once we have learned the fundamentals and moved on to a deep, personal relationship with our God, we can begin to be more bold like Moses and let our heart seek to see the face of God.  This is not to say we have become worthy to see God's face, but merely that we love Him so much and we are so completely committed to our relationship with Him, we want to be in His presence standing right before Him seeking to see His face.
   So you should fear and love the Lord in all you do, and then as your relationship with Him grows and your fear and love for Him will give you the desire for that relationship to always be growing and your heart truly can seek to see the face of God.  The best news, is that God let us see His glory by sending His Son and some day we will all see the face of God when Christ comes again.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.