“Seek the LORD and His strength;
Seek His face evermore!” (Psalm 105:4)

We can have zoom meetings with each other; but God wants face time.

When Jesus was on His way to the house of Jairus to heal his daughter, someone in the crowd reached out and touched Him. We know the story. Jesus was on the way to an Important Meeting, but He stopped. “Who touched me?” He said (read the story in Luke 8 43-48). When Peter pointed out that they were surrounded by a crowd of people pushing and shoving, Jesus explained that He knew someone had reached out and touched him intentionally: “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.”

How often have you had your head full of a big project (or maybe not such a big one…); someone has wanted your attention, and you haven’t had time to stop for them because of what you were on your way to do? Jesus had a crowd following Him and was on His way to perform a miracle for one of the leaders of the synagogue.  If Jesus had been like you and me and listened to His flesh He might have thought something like this: “This could be a strategic moment in My ministry! This Jairus guy is one of the leaders of the Jews! This could be a big chance to win them over!” But instead He stopped, and was drawn by Love to the person who had reached for Him and received some of the Life that He carried.

God want us to seek Him and His strength. There was no conversation between Jesus and the woman until after she had received her healing: she just sought Him in faith, connected, and received. If we spend time seeking His face and connecting with Him, power will go out from Him into us. If we seek His face we will receive His strength, we will be filled with His Spirit and His fire will come and purify our hearts. I believe that God is preparing the Church for a new outpouring of His Spirit, when we are fully loving the Lord with all our hearts, all our souls and all our minds (Matt 22 37); when there is no room in our thinking or our emotions (soul) for anything that is not Him. Just as the woman’s faith had made her “whole” – Greek sozo, which is also the word used for salvation – I believe that it is God’s desire for our faith to make us whole – wholly in love with Him – as well.

If we commit ourselves to seeking His face “while He may be found” – for some of us, this is an opportunity that lockdown has uniquely provided – I believe He will do this in us, and our often carnal thinking will be replaced by His heavenly perspectives:

“Seek the LORD while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55: 6-9)

We may read this as an unattainable impossibility, and so it is – for the flesh. But when Jesus comes for His bride, He will want her to be on the same wavelength as He is: wouldn’t you? So for our Groom, this means us, the bride, thinking heavenly thoughts, not earthly ones. All Spirit; no flesh. New thinking and new ways. As perfect as He is. We may not be there yet, or anywhere near, but now is the time to make that the desire of our hearts, to believe that it is possible, and to keep face-timing the Lord until it is fulfilled (Matt 7: 7-8). And then the power that has gone into us will flow out of us as well, bringing healing and salvation to whoever stops us on the way to our meeting.