The Gaze of God

The gaze of God is an extordinary thing. If we acknowledge the gaze of God, it would radically alter our lives in every area.

The gaze of God exposes sin and unrighteousness. It also is the gaze of love and acceptance. The gaze of God penetrates all actions, words, thoughts, and motives. Edward T. Welch says in his book When People are Big and God is Small, "God's gaze transforms. It will expel the fear of man and be a blessing for all people."

God has taught me so much and convicted me of so much over the past few weeks as I have read this book. He has shown me that I live more under the gaze of others than under His gaze. God has revealed to me that a major problem in Christian's lives today is the fear of man. We are so worried about what others think of us. We live our lives like leaky paper cups who constantly need to be filled by the love and affirmation of others instead of living our lives under the holy gaze of God and allowing His purposes for us be all that we "need." If I/we lived under the fear of God, we would not need man. We would be freed to love like God intends us to. To quote Welch again, if we lived under the fear of God and not man, "we would love people more and need them less."

Living under the gaze of God would truly free us up to walk and live in the holiness of God; to walk according to His purposes for our lives free from sin, selfishness, and neediness.

I don't want my felt needs to determine how I live my life, I want to be controlled by the Holy Spirit of God as I live under His holy gaze!