As a result of our fallen nature, we once lived “in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind” (Eph. 2:3). But now we are called to consider our “spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (1:3), to be filled with “all the fullness of God” (3:19), with “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (1:23). Maintaining that eternal focus means that our loves and desires here and now have been recalibrated (4:1–3). 

The Bible verse on my father’s headstone reads, “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness” (Ps. 17:15). It was the psalmist’s hope that one day he would see the face of God and be satisfied. That longing or desire to see or to seek God’s face is a great theme that runs through the Bible, and it has particular prominence in the Psalms (see 11:7; 17:15; 27:4; 34:8, 12; 36:9; 123:2). It leads the psalmist to ask a crucial question: “When shall I come and behold the face of God?” (42:2, NRSV). That question presupposes that God is visible and that His face can be seen.

Seeking and seeing the face of God is an appropriate goal for righteous people to pursue. When we seek the face of the Lord, we are seeking to know God closely and intimately. Seeing God’s face is to experience His presence and to enjoy a great blessing. When God makes His face shine on His people, or when He turns His face toward them, the result is blessing and joy.

Faithful believers are treated to a description of the full realization of this hope.

In the new Jerusalem, where God and the Lamb will reign forever, the promise is given:

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. (Rev. 22:3–4, NIV)

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