What Would Happen if We Behold Him

Dannah Gresh: Could it be that we’ve been beholding all the wrong things? Here’s Jackie Hill Perry.

Jackie Hill Perry: We are so fascinated by the world. We are so caught up in things that cannot change us and people that cannot save us and things that will not deliver us and personalities that did not die for us. But what would happen if we behold Him?

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Incomparable, for November 14, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy: What a special two weeks it’s been here on Revive Our Hearts. I’ve loved reflecting on the messages from the most recent True Woman conference. Let me tell you—these speakers did not just throw these talks together. They didn’t pull some old notes out of the archives and say, “Sure, that’ll work!” They sought the Lord for weeks and months so they could communicate what He wanted them to say. And His presence was so evident through the whole weekend.

If God has used these messages from True Woman—either live during the conference or over the past two weeks as we’ve shared them with you—to help you behold Jesus, to give you a fresh sense of the wonder of His Word, would you consider supporting Revive Our Hearts through a financial gift? When you do, you’re partnering with us to help women all over the world find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. In fact, it was so exciting to learn that women from ninety different countries livestreamed the True Woman '25 conference. That includes women who were meeting in fifteen different locations through the island of Cuba to livestream the entire weekend!

There in Indianapolis I had the great joy of meeting many, many women from around world who had come to be a part of that weekend. They expressed such gratitude for what the Lord is doing through the ministry of Revive Our Hearts in their part of the world. If you'd like to know more about how th Lord is at work through our international ministries, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/international. It wouldn’t be possible to reach all these women without friends like you who are partnering with us in prayer and support of these outreaches. 

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Well yesterday, we listened as Jackie Hill Perry shared what happens when God looks upon our spiritual blindness and says, “Let there be light.” That's when we are able to see God for who He is. We can see His glory, to see the beauty and the wonder of the gospel of Christ. If you missed that episode, you can find it in the archives at ReviveOurHearts.com or on the Revive Our Hearts app. Today we’re hearing the second half of that message, and wow . . . prepare your hearts, and maybe even grab some tissues, because the Holy Spirit was at work through Jackie’s words that night. And I know He is continuing to work as you hear today's program.

Here she is, picking up in John chapter 1, verse 14.

Jackie:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Who is the we John is referencing? Well, it's the apostles, the disciples, those who were eyewitnesses of Christ while He was on earth. He says that they didn't just see Christ, but glory, a glory in Christ that made manifest God as being full, abounding in grace and truth. 

Again, John is hinting at the Old Testament here in Exodus 33. Moses asked God a question. He said, “Please show me your glory, glory being the manifestation of God's splendor and God's beauty and God's greatness.” Glory is a revelation. So Moses wants to see something that God has to reveal. That's why he asked, “Please show me Your glory.” God tells him that he can't see his face because if he did, he wouldn't live. So He will put him in the cleft of a rock, cover him with His hand while His glory passes by. 

The Bible says that Moses went up to Mount Sinai and the Lord descended in the cloud and proclaimed His glory. He said He is the Lord, the gracious and merciful God who is slow to anger and, catch this, abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness. What does that have to do with John? 

Well, when the Lord reveals Himself as a God who was abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, it is likely that John is summarizing both terms when he says that Jesus is full of grace and truth. Grace being a summary of the Hebrew term hesed, which communicates the Lord's love and kindness. Truth being a rendering of the Hebrew term emet, which reveals the Lord's reliability. 

So when Moses heard the Lord proclaim Himself as one who abounds in steadfast love, and then we got Jesus coming on the scene, turning water to wine to cover some people's shame. We got Jesus coming on the scene, healing broken bodies. We got Jesus coming on the scene and raising the dead and eventually dying for sinners. They were seeing the Lord's steadfast love in Christ.

When Moses heard the Lord proclaim Himself as abounding and faithfulness and Jesus comes preaching that He is the way, the truth and the life. They were seeing the Lord's faithfulness, which is to say what Moses only heard while in the cleft of a rock, John and the disciples have now seen in the incarnate Word of God. When they saw Jesus, they saw God's glory . . . but not everybody did. 

Not everybody saw what John saw. Not everybody understood what John heard. 

• To some, the Word was not in the beginning with God. He was just Mary's son. 
• To some, He was not the exegesis of God. He was just a prophet. 
• To others, the Word was not with God but a man who actually needed Satan's help to cast out demons. 
• To others, the Word was not God at all. He was a sinner. 

It is possible to see Jesus and not behold Him. It is possible to be around Jesus and not notice glory. It is this very blindness that is the reason He died. 

How else could he have been crucified? Paul said in 1 Corinthians, if they had understood God's divine wisdom, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (2:8). So my question to us is, what do you think is happening when we sin against Him? 

When we do bad things with our bodies or bad things to our neighbors online or bad things in marriage or in friendship; when we watch what we shouldn't and love what we shouldn't and enjoy what we were commanded to put to death, it is possible maybe potentially that somewhere in us we have stopped beholding glory. He has become for us something less than the Lord of glory.

We see that God / man on that cross. We are so used to discussing it that we forget that it was our sin that brought Him there. Not just John, not just Peter, not just Matthew, not just Mark, not just Andrew or his brother. It was not just their sin, but mine. My sin is the reason for the nails in His hand. Your sin is the cause for the crown on His head. 

So I think to help us reorient ourselves around the cross, I think to help us think on what is true and what is worthy of praise, I think it will be helpful, simply put for us to behold Him again. 

Let's see Him—Jesus who was in the beginning with God, behold Him. Jesus who is God, behold Him. 

All things were made through him [and for Him] and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:3)

Jesus who is God who took on flesh and dwelt among us, behold Him.

Jesus who revealed the glory of God's nature, being full of grace and truth, behold Him. 

Behold Him when He heals in a home. 

Behold Him when He opens up the scroll and says that He has been anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. 

Behold Him in the wilderness being tempted but victorious. 

Behold Him at table with sinners. 

Behold Him on mountains in prayer. 

Behold Him as the man of sorrows acquainted with grief. 

Behold Him as He breaks the bread and pours the wine. 

Behold Him as faithful.

Behold Him as true. 

Behold Him as the way since no man can come to the Father except through Him. 

Behold Him as the suffering servant. 

I don't know if you see Him yet, so I'll keep going. There He is in the garden, asking the Father to take the cup. That cup that had God's wrath for our sin in it. The Word who was in the beginning with God was about to be forsaken by God. 

The Word who was in the beginning with God was in the Garden of Gethsemane reckoning with the fact that He was about to be forsaken by the God that He was always with—behold His love.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). 

Behold Him as He becomes the propitiation for our sins, absorbing the wrath of God—so what we get is righteousness by faith.

Behold Him drinking the whole cup.

Behold Him paying the full price. 

Behold Him saying, “It is finished.” 

Behold, behold the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. 

Behold Him who is the resurrection and the life. 

Behold Him who has conquered the grave. 

Behold Him who was in the form of God but did not count quality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself. 

Behold Him who has humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

Behold Him who was highly exalted. 

Behold Him, the name that should be in our mouths. 

Behold Him who has the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (see Phil. 2:10–11).

Do you see Him yet? 

We are so easily distracted. We are so fascinated by the world. We are so caught up in things that cannot change us and people that cannot save us and things that will not deliver us and personalities that did not die for us. 

 

But what would happen if we behold Him? 

What would happen when you are in pain and you behold Him? 

What would happen when you are frustrated and you behold Him? 

What would happen when you are betrayed and you behold Him?

What happens when you have a besetting sin that makes you believe that the blood doesn't still work, but you chose to behold Him? 

What happens when God has called you to a ministry where people want you to preach everything but Jesus and you have to remember that my job, my mission is to preach the gospel so that people would behold Him? 

What happens when you are weary in prayer? You must behold Him. 

What happens when you start losing your eyesight? You must behold Him.

What happens when your body breaks down? You behold Him.

What happens when you lose people? You behold Him.

Why do you think you were made? Why do you think you were created if not to behold Him? 

I believe the Lord wants to take us back to the main thing—which is to behold Him. 

There's a passage in John after Jesus is risen from the dead. The disciples see Him in a room. And they go and tell one of the other disciples, Thomas, that they just saw the Lord, and Thomas doesn't believe it. 

Thomas says, “You know, that's all good and all. He was like, well . . . I need to see Him to believe you. I need to see the nails in His hands. I need to see all the stuff.” And Jesus shows up in the room a few days later. And He says to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands. And put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.” 

Thomas answered Him—this is the thesis statement of John—”My Lord and my God!”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29)

A metaphor for belief in the Scriptures is the act of seeing Him. I don't know what church context you come from. I don't know what denomination you are familiar with, but I just want to create an opportunity for us to beg God to help us see Him again. Because where we are lacking sight is revelation of where we lack faith. 

We need the Holy Spirit to help us have faith. We need the Holy Spirit to make all the Scripture that we know, something that we believe, more than we quote. We need the Holy Spirit to go to work on us so that we would be faithful, so that we would love Him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and so that we would know our neighbor, or so that we can love our neighbors and ourselves. 

This is not a conference just to come to and leave and be the same. We will remain the same if we don't behold Him. We need mercy. We need the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do. So the altar is open. 

I don't know the last time you got on your face, but sometimes you have to be desperate in your body so your heart can remember what you are called to do, which is to surrender. The altar is open for you to just simply say, “God help me believe. I am struggling in my marriage. I am struggling in my campus. I am struggling in my mind. And I need your help to believe.”

I will pray over you and I hope you respond to what the Holy Spirit is saying.

God of glory we love You, and we thank You that You have loved us first. I pray God that You would have mercy. I pray God that yYou would open up our eyes so that we would see You. I pray God that You would humble our hearts so that we would behold You. 

I pray for those of us who are weary in well-doing help; them see You. I pray those for those who are enslaved to sin that they would recognize the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and Your gospel. 

I pray that every hardened heart would be softened. I pray that every blind eye would be open. I pray that every deaf ear that they would hear You call. 

I pray even now that those who have resisted Your Word by suppressing the truth about their own unrighteousness that You would summon them, that they would follow You. And that from this day forth they would take up the cross and deny themselves. 

I pray that we would deny ourselves. I pray that we would not be self-centered. I pray that we would not be self-oriented. I pray that we would have the mind that is in Christ Jesus who did not count equality with God the thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. I pray that You would make us a servant. I pray that You would make us obedient. I pray that You would make us lovers of God and not lovers of self. 

I pray for those who have addictions that they would see You, that they would see that You are worthy of their loyalty, that You are worthy of their time, that You are worthy of their affections. I pray for everyone who is a slave of sexual sin and in leadership, I pray that they would repent and believe the gospel again. I pray for those who are slaves to shame, that they would no longer believe the lie of the evil one, but they would believe that there is no condemnation for all those who believe in Christ Jesus. 

I pray that we would believe in Christ Jesus, that we would not preach or believe any other gospel than what the disciples and what the apostles have written.

God, I think of the disciples who were filled with the Holy Spirit. To do Your work, You filled them again, not as though they needed another Holy Spirit or another infilling, but it was fresh power, fresh anointing to do what You called them to do. I pray for boldness in this room. I pray for courage in this room. I pray for everyone who was afraid to be faithful out loud. I pray that You would help us to tell the truth and shame the devil. But I also pray that You would give us a compassion to tell the truth with a spirit of gentleness and respect.

I pray that we would not believe that we can tell the truth and hate our neighbor at the same time. I pray that You would soften our hearts to the way we love people. I pray for this nation that we would love people like You love people. I pray that You would raise up Christians that don't just love truth but love people. 

To Him who was able to keep us from stumbling and to present us faultless and blameless before His glorious presence with great joy, we behold You.

We thank You for all that You have done for us in Christ Jesus. I pray that under the sound of worship in the midst of community after leaning into Your Word that Your Holy Spirit would do work, that You would grant miracles in this room, and that our lives will be changed forever—not because we did anything special, but because we beheld the glory of the Son. 

We love You, and we thank You, in Christ Jesus, amen.

Nancy: Amen! Wow! What you can't see as you've been listening to this message from Jackie Hill Perry at True Woman '25, is that the last few minutes, she was weeping, tears streaming down her face. I've heard those who know Jackie say, "That was unusual." And throughout that prayer, she was bowing on the platform, pouring out her heart to the Lord. It was a holy moment. It was a precious thing to stand there at the front and watch as so many women came streaming from their seats down to the front of that auditorium to bow on the floor before the Lord, crying out to Him, lifting their hands—some of them weeping, confessing, praying, beholding Christ in a fresh way.

There were a lot of emotions, but it wasn't emotionalism. It was emotions birthed out of having seen Christ through His Word in a fresh way.

I wonder if, whether you are in your car or in your kitchen or your study or listening with airpods, if this needs to be a holy moment for you. Could you take a moment to pause, stop whatever you’re doing is possible, and look up to Christ. Behold Him in a fresh way.. If there’s anything you need to surrender to the Lord, a sin you need to confess, forgiveness you need to ask, or just simply worship—"Lord, I love You, I bless You. I want to see You in every moment and circumstance of my life for Your glory."

Scripture teaches us in 2 Corinthians 3 that we become what we behold. So, oh Lord, I pray that in these moments and in the days ahead that we would behold Jesus in fresh ways, that we would behold You in Your Word, and that our lives would be transformed, conformed to the image of Jesus, as we see more of Your face, more of Your ways, more of Your Word, more of Your glory, and more of Your gospel. I pray in Jesus' precious name, Amen.

If you’d like to watch Jackie’s message, you’ll find a link to the video in the transcript of today’s program, at ReviveOurHearts.com.

I hope you’ll keep beholding Him as you go through this weekend. I hope you’re able to behold Him in worship, along with your church family.

On Monday, we’re hearing from another wonderful True Woman speaker. My friend Kelly Needham gave a powerful message called "Behold the Power of the Word to Save." If you’ve truly beheld the glory of Christ in the gospel, the natural next step is to tell others about Him. Kelly’s gonna encourage us to do just that.

I heard from several people at True Woman about how helpful and encouraging Kelly's message was to them. That's why I want to encourage you to please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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