I heard a great message from Bill Johnson on Favor and then I had a look at The Word (the Bible) to see what it had to say on favor. Interestingly a common phrase in the Bible that came up as I was looking at Favor was “Make Your face to shine upon me Lord”
I found this very interesting as often people think of favor as being all about us. What I want and what I can get. Lord show me favor so I get something, favor in money or business. Looking at the scriptures changed my focus. Because when the Lord makes His face to shine upon us then we will be overcome with His Glory, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, ie everythuing will become about Him, our focus will no longer be on us and our situation.
One thing that The Lord has shown us over and over again as we have endeavored to push into Him is that the closer we get to God, the more we realize that we are nothing and that He is everything. The more we realize that we are so tainted with our own selves and muck, the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.
Lord make Your face shine upon me, but please don’t look too closely as I have become aware of how full of myself that I am.
No, we can pray confidently “Lord make your face shine upon me, as I know that Jesus has washed me clean and I can boldly come into your presence.” Lord also help me to have the courage to be able to face up to what and who I really am and that together we can go forward and clean up, Lord have your way and help me to trust you, no matter what I think or how it looks help me please Lord to trust you knowing that you are ALWAYS GOOD!
When you draw near to The Holy God, your unholyness will be revealed to you. But this is never so that you go away, but only ever so that you are given an opportunity to surrender it to God, and then once that ‘muck’ is dealt with we then gain the ability to come even closer.