In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
“Woe to me! I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:1-5, NIV).
Can you imagine the experience Isaiah had that day in the temple? He entered to worship the Lord, but he left having seen the Lord. When we come to God in worship, are we expecting to truly see Him? I don’t know about you, but I want to see the Lord. I want to experience such a move of God that the thresholds would shake and my eyes would be opened to see my sin as He sees it. I want to see His glory. So I have been praying, “Lord, show me Your glory.”
I believe there is a process to this just as there is a process to most things that God does in our lives. The first step is we have to have our eyes opened, and that is an act of the Holy Spirit. We need to pray and ask God to open our eyes to His truth–His truth about who He is and His truth about ourselves. Our own hearts are deceitful. We need the Lord to reveal truth.
I love the account of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. On Sunday afternoon, two of Jesus’ followers are hightailing it out of Jerusalem, discussing all that has taken place. Jesus comes along beside them but keeps them from recognizing who He is, and He asks them what they are talking about. They begin to share all about how they had hoped that Jesus was the one who was going to redeem Israel, but He had been crucified instead. They even admit that the women who went to the tomb that morning had not found His body and had seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. But apparently they didn’t believe this truth.
Jesus proceeds to explain how foolish they are to not see the truth. He explains the Scriptures about Himself from Moses to the prophets, and apparently they still don’t believe! Finally, they invite Him into their home after a seven mile trip with burning hearts.
“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…” (Luke 24:30-31a).
You see, here are two people who have been followers of Jesus, learned from Him, walked with Him, and even had the Word preached to them personally by the Word Himself, and yet they still didn’t truly see. But when the Holy Spirit opened their eyes, they recognized the burning in their hearts. They saw His truth and His glory.
If we want to see the glory of God, we need to press in and believe God to unveil our eyes. Pray as the Psalmist:
“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” (Psalm 119:18).
The second step is we have to be willing to turn our eyes away from evil. Our eyes are so full of all that we put in front of them. We are bombarded with sights and images all day long and even through the night in our dreams. I am a very visual person, so much so that I watch movies with the captions on because I can read faster than I can hear.
All of the images, words, and imaginations before my eyes every day are vying for my attention. I have to choose to turn my eyes away. When God reveals sin in my life, as He did to Isaiah in the temple, I need to make a decision to not look on that which is evil in God’s sight. Job said that he had made a covenant with his eyes not to look on someone with lust. He was committed to guarding his eyes.
“Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word” (Psalm 119:37).
You know what will give us the desire to turn our eyes away from the “worthless things”? When the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the reality of the glory of God. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he also saw himself. In the light of the glory of God, he recognized how very sinful he was. When our eyes are opened to see God clearly, we will be appalled at our own filthiness.
Here we see the progression from having eyes opened, to turning our eyes from that which is worthless, to fixing our eyes on the Lord:
“Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses (eyes opened), let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles (eyes turned away), and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus (eyes fixed), the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2, parentheses added).
The Greek word used here for fix means “to look away from all else and see distinctly” (Strong’s). We have to have the eyes of a dove that focus only on one thing and are not distracted by anything else. That one thing is Jesus.
“My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare” (Psalm 25:15).
“But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign Lord; in you I take refuge–do not give me over to death” (Psalm 141:8).
“Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you” (Proverbs 4:25).
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Do you want to see the glory of God in your life? I am praying this prayer for you:
“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:18-21).
Lord Jesus, may those of us who hunger and thirst for more of you be filled with a revelation of your glory. Turn our hearts away from worthless things and give us eyes focused on You.
Eyes on You, Lord. Eyes on You.