Have you ever considered what the ultimate manifestation of the presence of God might be? I have been doing a preaching series on the presence of God and when I came to consider the ultimate manifestation of God's presence on earth today, I was slightly surprised by where the scriptures took me (that's one of the things I love about the Word of God!).
Miracles, healings, glory clouds, gold-dust, jewels falling from heaven - none of these are the ultimate manifestation of God's presence: rather the ultimate manifestation of God's presence is that Jesus is seen! Now some of the things I've listed might be the trigger to people seeing Jesus, but signs and wonders are just that: signs that point to Jesus and wonders that make you wonder. Seeing Jesus - not in a vision, but seeing, hearing, touching something tangible that means you know that you've encountered him - is what it's all about.
That's why the Bible says the earth with be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord - God wants everyone to know Jesus experientially.
This begs the question, "how will people see Jesus?" I plan to post regularly over the next few days with some thoughts from the book of Revelation to try, at least in part, to answer that question.
Looking forward to these Matthew, like all of us I'm sure.., I really want to see Jesus.
Posted by: KevC | 29 September 2008 at 10:53 PM