To See God is to Gain God, be Transformed, Purified, and Sent by God to Express God

When we see Christ in glory, we will be terminated, for we realize we’re men of unclean lips, and seeing God causes us to gain God, receive God, and be transformed; furthermore, the Lord purges our lips, for when we see the Lord, we are purified.

We need to see a vision of the glorious Christ so that we may enjoy and experience Him for the genuine church life today.

Many times we may look at the situation around us and all we see is just corruption, failure, and degradation; this may have an impact on us, for we love the Lord and we want to live for His purpose.

Even when we are down, depressed, or discouraged with the current situation, the Lord still comes to us to reveal Himself in glory to us.

Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on the throne in Isa. 6:1-8; he was depressed and down because of the current situation of the people of Israel, but the Lord appeared to him, and he was encouraged.

Today the people around us call evil as being good, bitter as being sweet, and up as being down; what is normal, to them is very abnormal, and being distinct from others in strange ways based on their preferences, seems to be normal.

But we need to lift our eyes and see the Lord on the throne.

We need to see that, no matter what happens outwardly, the Lord is still on the throne, and the whole earth is filled with His glory.

Even when the good leaders are very few, even when the situation is very dire, and even when there is so much degradation in the church life, we still need to look to the Lord and see a vision of the glorious Christ.

We need to come to the Lord as we are and seek after Him, pursue Him, and desire to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life.

We need to be in the church life, be in the meetings of the church, and remain in our spirit so that we may be in the dwelling place of God.

Here we should dwell, in the Lord’s dwelling place, so that we may behold the beauty of the Lord and enquire in His temple.

When we see the Lord, when we see a vision of the Lord’s economy, we will be governed and controlled not by what we see outwardly or even by the condition of the church but by the economy of God.

We will give ourselves to be in the word of God, to enjoy the Lord, and to dive into the rich ministry that opens up the word of God.

And we will not allow anything to distract us from the rich enjoyment of the Lord in His word.

Yes, around us people are calling good, evil, and evil, good, and they call the bitter, sweet, and the sweet, bitter.

The news media and the social media are filled with speaking that is corrupting and corrupted, and everyone wants to prove a certain point and put forth a certain ideology.

But we keep coming to the Lord to see Him.

We realize that He is on a high and lofty throne, He is enthroned above all, and everything is under His feet. Hallelujah, the Lord is on the throne!

To See God is to Gain God and be Transformed, Denying Ourselves and being Reconstituted with Him

May the Lord have mercy on us that we would take heed to Isaiah’s warning word (Isa. 6:9-10) by exercising our spirit to pray that the Lord would open our inner eyes and soften our heart to see Him.

We need to exercise our spirit to ask the Lord in prayer to open our inner eyes, soften our heart, and keep our heart turned to Him so that we may receive His inner healing of our blindness and sickness (John 12:40; Matt. 13:14-17; Acts 28:25-27; Rev. 3:18; 4: 2; 2 Cor. 3:16-18).

When we turn our heart to the Lord, the veil is taken away, and we see God. Some today have ears but cannot hear, eyes but cannot see, and their heart does not perceive what the Lord speaks and does.

May we turn our heart to the Lord and ask Him to remove any stubbornness and blindness, and may we ask Him to heal us from any disobedience.

We need to have a turn; many times the Lord is right behind us, waiting for us to turn to Him.

When we turn to the Lord and see Him, we gain Him.

Seeing God equals gaining God.

On the positive side, seeing God equals gaining God, and on the negative side, when we see God, we realize that we are men of unclean lips dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips (Isa. 6:5).

May we allow the Lord to shine on us and expose our true situation and condition, and may we come to Him as we are for Him to judge, purify, and remove anything of uncleanness and defilement from us.

In the New Testament sense, seeing God equals gaining God (Gen. 13:13-14; Gal. 3:14; Matt. 5:8).

To gain God means to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature so that we may be constituted with God.

This is what the Lord wants us to do.

On one hand, He wants to purge anything that is not of Him from our being; on the other hand, He wants us to see God and therefore gain God and be constituted with God.

Many times in the morning we may look in the mirror and we may not be that encouraged by what we see; however, we still need to come to the Lord and tell Him that we love Him.

When we behold the Lord in our time with Him and in our frequent contact with Him throughout the day, we gain God.

Gaining God means that we obtain more of His element, life, and nature, and we are constituted with God. Little by little, day by day, we need to gain God.

We need to behold Him and be filled with Him, and we will reflect Him and express Him.

Everything that we see of Christ, becomes our spiritual possession.

In Gen. 13, after Lot separated himself from Abram, the Lord told Abram to lift up his eyes and look from the place where is northward, southward, eastward, and westward, for all this land He will give to him.

What he saw is what he got; he saw the good land and it became his. Similarly, today, what we see of Christ is what we gain of God.

We need to see the Lord more so that we may gain Him more.

There is a vast, unexplored territory of Christ as the reality of the all-inclusive good land that can be ours, as long as we exercise to turn to Him and behold Him.

Seeing God transforms us, because in seeing God we gain God and receive His element into us (2 Cor. 3:15—4:1; Rom. 12:2; Phil. 3:8).

At the same time, seeing God causes our old element to be discharged. This is a metabolic process called transformation.

When we turn our heart to the Lord, the veil is taken away; with an unveiled face, we behold and reflect like a mirror the glory of the Lord, and we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

We will have the same image as Christ from one degree of glory to another degree of glory!

On the negative side, the more we see God, the more we abhor ourselves and the more we deny ourselves (Job 42:5-6; Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23; 14:26).

On the positive side, we behold the Lord and gain Him, know Him, and love Him; on the negative side, we see God and deny ourselves.

We may even realize that we have so little of the Lord and so much of ourselves, we know Him experientially to such a small degree, and we did not gain too much of Him.

So we repent. We deny ourselves. And we turn to Him to see God, gain God, be transformed, and deny ourselves.

Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit to pray that You would open our inner eyes, soften our heart, and keep our heart turned to You so that we may receive Your inner healing of our blindness and sickness. Heal our blindness, Lord, and remove our sickness. Cause our heart to turn to You so that we may behold You and reflect You. Oh Lord, we want to see God and gain God! We want to receive more of God in His element, life, and nature so that we may be constituted with God! Amen, Lord, may our seeing God transform us by adding more of the element of God in our being and discharging our old element. Keep us beholding You today until anything of us is discharged and what is of You is added to our being. May we see God, know God, and love God, and may there be a real denial of the self so that Christ would become everything to us day by day!

Seeing God issues in being Purified and Cleansed to be Sent by God and expressing Him

In Isa. 6:5-7, when Isaiah realized that he had seen God and was still alive, he saw what his real situation was and repented.

He said, Woe is me, for I am finished! For I am a man of unclean lips, and in the midst of a people of unclean lips I dwell; yet my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts.

When we see God, we gain God; when we see a vision of Christ in glory, He is being infused into us.

At the same time, when we see God, we realize that we are unclean and especially our lips are unclean.

The Lord is faithful to shine on us, especially on our speaking.

Most of our words during the day may be things such as gossip, murmuring, and reasoning; these things are unclean.

We are made unclean by what we speak more than what we do.

If we were to eliminate gossip, murmuring, and reasoning, we may not have much to talk about.

When we see the Lord, we are enlightened, and like Peter in Luke 5:8, we may say, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Oh Lord.

How much we realize concerning ourselves depends on how much we see God.

When we see God, we realize who we are; we realize our sinful and unclean being and condition.

We may think we are okay many times, but when we contact the Lord, we see who and what we really are.

This is why we need to start our day by having a time with the Lord.

When we contact the Lord in the morning in our morning revival time with Him, we see who we are, and we repent.

We realize that in us there’s nothing good, and everything within us is without splendour or virtue. Just as in Isaiah’s case, we need to be purified and cleansed.

After Isaiah realized that he was unclean, he was purged by one of the seraphim, signifying the holiness of God, with an ember from the altar.

The application of this ember by the seraphim signifies the effectiveness of Christ’s redemption accomplished on the cross and applied to our being by the Holy Spirit (Isa. 6:6-7; 4:4; cf. Luke 12:49; Rev. 4:5).

When we see God in our touch with Him in spirit, He applies the cross to our being and judges, burns, and sanctifies us.

The Holy Spirit, “the Spirit the Holy”, has a judging, burning, and sanctifying power.

When we see God, we are purified, purged, and cleansed by God; this results in our being sent by God to His people to bring them into a state of living Christ (Isa. 6:6-8; 1 John 1:7-9; Acts 13:47; Phil. 1:21).

When we see God, we gain God, we are transformed, we are purified, and we are cleansed; we are then brought into a state of living Christ to express Him.

Such an experience will commission us to go to God’s people and bring them into a state of living Christ so that they might express Him in His glory, be saturated with His holiness, and live in His righteousness.

May we have a habit of contacting the Lord early in the morning and turning to Him throughout the day so that we may be cleansed, purged, and purified, and so that we may be sent by Him to His people to bring them into a state of living Christ.

May we contact the Lord again and again, turning our heart to Him to behold Him and be infused with Him, so that anything that is unclean in us would be discharged and what is of Him would be added to our being.

May we heed God’s call to go and bring His chosen people into a state of living Christ to express Him in His righteousness, holiness, and glory.

Lord Jesus, we turn our heart to You and we exercise our spirit to behold You in spirit. We just want to see God and gain God so that we may be transformed into the same image as Christ. Oh Lord, shine on us. Enlighten us concerning our condition and situation. Expose our vain talk and unclean lips. Have a way to apply the effectiveness of Christ’s redemption through the cross to our being, especially to our speaking. Purify us, purge us, and cleanse us. How much we need Your cleansing and purifying! May we see God and be purged and cleansed by God. Amen, Lord, may our seeing God issue in our being purged, cleansed, and purified in our heart and in our speaking. May we be qualified to be those sent by God to bring His chosen people into a state of living Christ! Amen, Lord, may Your people express You in Your glory, be saturated with Your holiness, and live in Your righteousness!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Isaiah (pp. 36-39) by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life (2023 spring ITERO), week 8, entitled, The Vision, Experience, and Enjoyment of the Glorious and Excellent Christ as the Supreme Preciousness of God for the Genuine Church Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Take time to behold Him, / Let Him be thy guide; / And run not before Him / Whatever betide; / In joy or in sorrow / Still follow thy Lord, / And, looking to Jesus, / Still trust in His Word. (Hymns #643 stanza 3)
  – I would cease completely / From my efforts vain, / Let Thy life transform me, / Full release to gain; / Build me up with others / Till in us Thou see / Thy complete expression / Glorifying Thee. (Hymns #841 stanza 6)
  – Consecrated is Thy temple, / Purged from every stain and sin; / May Thy flame of glory now be / Manifested from within. / Let the earth in solemn wonder / See my body willingly / Offered as Thy slave obedient, / Energized alone by Thee. (Hymns #403 stanza 2)