...then I met His gaze!

IN AN ENDLESS TRADITION OF GOD'S WORD AND THE MIRACULOUS!!!

"...looking unto Jesus." - Heb12:2

It was one of those days. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Vanity couldn't provide another area of life to be wasted; itself out of resource. Purposedly, I drifted my thoughts immediately the voice in the wind tells me to pick it up and read.
"Ah, well, i might as well read it and get it over with," I said to myself. "Let me start from the book of Acts," thinking loud, "maybe I could run through this one."
The words I read, the pages I turned, but none seeped in. It was like having two minds in one. Having read a few chapters I got to the point where a commoner was arrayed to face judgment. I came alive when I read that he looked up and saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
Like a bolt of lightning, it hit me; it was like pouring a hot coffee in a cup and at the same time looking at one of God's creations in admiration, only to feel a tinge of a nerve and then a shot of pain as the hot water smears your skin. "Did Stepen really see what he claimed?" I wondered.
"He must have for the scriptures says it."
I beckon to you to recall those moments when you know, and you know, that you know, there has never been any moment than when you find yourself standing before the throne of Grace. My eyes went up; not in belief to see what Stephen saw, but in hidden mockery;
times when you lay your hands on a sick person, not believing to heal but doing to conceal your unbelief while trying to justify your works;
Do you still remember when you are told that all you need to do is to pray and believe, then you bend down to pray again; knowing you've prayed before; this time, merely an act;
the former prayers, you thought you were praying to God, while within you were blaming God for the mishap; the latter prayer before the child of God who instructed you to pray, only a whisper of weariness; never passing beyond the roughtops above you.

I felt exactly like that. It was one of those times. I lifted my face up like Stephen, but not like him. Stephen's was out of belief; mine was out of duty.
Then I met His gaze!
My eyes were undone as Christ's eyes burrowed into mine!
Pain shot through my heart as my heart He unfolded
Tears of shame, trapped beneath my eyelids as my doubt He revealed.
"Depart from me Oh, Son of Man,for I'm a sinner. Defiled and unmade I am Oh, Righteousness of God. Leave me in my state for I've failed You."
"LOOK UP AGAIN, SON. LET ME SEE YOU."
"I can't Father. Stephen is your son, for he looked at you in boldness."
"LOOK UP AND LIVE. YOU CANNOT UNMAKE YOUR SONSHIP. YOU ARE MINE. LISTEN AND LIVE."
Fear, greater than that of Zechariah when he attended to the temple of God, filled me.
As I looked up...
"IT IS FINISHED!"
AND IT WAS! MY SHAME WAS GONE. MY SIN WAS LOST. MY UNBELIEF UNDONE.
NOW I LOOK BACK AND REALISE THAT I WAS NEVER SAVED UNTIL I CAME TO THE CROSS...NEVER JUSTIFIED UNTIL I SAW THE EMPTY TOMB... NEVER REDEEMED UNTIL I WAS BOUGHT WITH HIS BLOOD.. NEVER SANCTIFIED UNTIL I WAS COVERED WITH HIS BLOOD...
NEVER SAW UNTIL I LOOKED UNTO JESUS...
TRY IT BELOVED, YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU WILL MEET HIS GAZE!!!

Shalom
the prisoner of Christ