Seeking the Face of YHVH

Iyyar 15, 5770

Surely the arm of YHVH is not too short to save, nor His ear to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your Elohim; your sins have hidden His Face from you, so that He will not hear. Isaiah 59:1&2

My heart says of You, "Seek His face!" Your Face, YHVH, I will seek. Psalm 27:8

When we meet someone we look at their face and within that face we are able to see what they are feeling....happy, sad, mad, scared...even indifference towards us. Yes you can tell a whole lot about a person just by looking at their face.

What about our Elohim's face? What are you looking for there? What are you going to find? When we seek His face, we are seeking His heart and His mind. Most of the time we seek His Hands and not His heart. "Please Father, I need this....please give, please heal, please fix this.........this is not seeking YHVH and this is definately not "seeking His face."

To truly 'seek His face' we must step out of our comfort zone...out of our daily routine. We must be willing to set aside any ideas and thoughts we already have about Him and be willing to accept anything He reveals to us.

We need to 'let go' of EVERYTHING. As long as we hol;d onto earthly things we will never ascend to the level of stepping into Heavenly things. We cannot come face to face with our Elohim unless we humble ourselves, pray, and turn from our wicked ways.

14 if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.2 Chronicals 7:14

We need to repent...we need to be aware of our wickedness. We need to seek Him and find out what things in our lives are displeasing to Him. When we do this we find out how we have failed in words, thoughts and deeds.

All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags to Him.Isaiah 64:6

He is our righteousness...we are nothing without Him.

We must seek Him in humility and be in complete dependence upon Him. for humility precedes holiness and without holiness we cannot see YHVH.

The emotional attribute of Sefirah for humility is HOD.

*It is said that humility is the silent partner of endurance. Its strength is in its silence. Its splendor is in its repose.

HUMILITY--and the resulting yielding-- should not be confused with weakness and lack of self-esteem. Humility is modesty: it is acknowledgement (from the root of the Hebrew word, "hoda 'ah"). It is saying "thank you" to Elohim. It is clearly recognising your qualities and strengths and acknowledging that they are not your own; they were given to you by YHVH for a higher purpose than to satisfy your own needs. Humility is modesty; it is recognising how small you arewhich allows you to realize how large you can become. and that makes humility so formidable.

Endurance draws its energy from th acknowledgement of humility. Human endurance goes only so far as your tolerance level. Acknowledging that your strengths come from a higher place gives you the power to endure far beyond your own perceived capacity. It gives you part of our Elohim's enduring strength.

A full cup cannot be filled. When you're filled with yourself and your needs, "I and nothing else" there is no room for more. When you "empty" yourself before something greater than yourself, your capacity to receive increases beyond your previously perceived limits. Humility is the key to transcendence; to reach beyond yourself. Only true humility gives you the power of total objectivity.

Humility is sensitivity. It is healthy shame that comes from recognising that you can be better than you are and that you can expect more of yourself.

Although humility is silent, it is not a void. It is a dynamic expression of life that includes all seven qualities of love, discipline, compassion, endurance, humility, bonding and sovereignty. Humility is active not passive, not a state of being but an interaction even in its calm and inaction.*

Those who truly desire to "seek His face" will find the time...will cancel hobbies, forsake tv, put away newspapers and magazines...we forsake everything to be in His Presence. We need to just put everything on hold and focus completely on YHVH...seeking intimacy with Him...to know His heart...and our own heart in His light.

Is there a place where we should go?

ADONAI would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.Exodus 33:11

How did Moses do this? Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp, some distance away, calling it the "tent of meeting". anyone inquiring of YHVH would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.

Anyone who inquired.....who sought YHVH....went outside the camp to the tent of meeting.

What does this mean for us? Are we to pitch a tent?

Yeshua said, "When you pray, go to your closet, close the door and pray to your Father." Matthew 6:6

When deep in prayer, Jewish men will put their prayer shawls over their heads to shut out the world and be in the presence of God. This can be seen in the synagogue or at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The prayer shawls are white, representing the heavens, or the dwelling place of the ADONAI. And, the color blue represents the Ruach HaKodesh, or Holy Spirit of ELOHIM. Therefore, praying under the tallit, or prayer shawl, is covering yourself with the presence of ELOHIM. From biblical times, this custom was like a prayer closet, and it is likely this is what Yeshua was referring to in Matthew 6:6, when He told us to get into our closet, apart from the people around, and pray in secret to the Lord.

It also means to get away....completely away...away from all the noise around you. A place where no one will see you or bother you. A place where you can pray to our Father and enter into His presence and it is there in this "place" in the secret of His Presence that we grow strong in faith and intimacy with our Elohim.

Yeshua often went by Himself to a deserted place early in the morning before anyone else was up. He made it a regular practice to seek His father in the solitude of the Mount of Olives.

He is our example...let us seek the face of YHVH...let us go into our prayer closets..into a place of solitude...forgetting the cares of the world and family problems. LET US SEEK THE FACE OF YHVH and be renewed in strength and the ability to hear His voice in the coming times of strife.

If we truly seek Him...if we fast and pray we will gain much....we will have greater intimacy with YHVH and a fresh indwelling of Ruach. we will have more clarity in hearing His voice and the direction in our calling and growth. And better discernment in the matters of life.

Seeking His Face will lead us into His Rest.




*from FORTY-NINE STEPS TO PERSONAL REFINEMENT ACCORDING TO JEWISH TRADITION by Rabbi Simon Jacobson.*