No Sight Without Faith First — If I Do Not Remain in Him

✦ Seasoned with Grace

A new voice enters the journal — John Owen, the Puritan, the deepest theological mind England produced — and he brings a truth that cuts clean. No sight without faith first. The glory of Christ in heaven is not a surprise destination for those who never looked at Him on earth. Grace prepares for glory. Faith prepares for sight. The beholding begins now — or it does not begin at all.

Owen uses the word seasoned. The soul must be previously seasoned with grace and faith before it can receive glory or vision. The way wood must be seasoned before it can bear weight. The way a vessel must be fired before it can hold water. The unseasoned soul cannot contain glory — not because God withholds it, but because the vessel is not ready.

Lewis said it on Monday: at first only for moments, then for longer periods, finally permanently. Owen says the same from a different angle: the moments of beholding by faith are the seasoning. Each morning before dawn — each opening of the Word, each Emmaus moment, each heart burning — is the fire that seasons the vessel. And the vessel that has been seasoned for fifty-three mornings is more capable of glory than it was on the first. 🙏

✦ In Love with Imagination

Owen exposes the self-deception that hides behind religious language. Everyone says it — at funerals, on deathbeds, in moments of crisis: I want to be with Jesus. I want to see His glory. But Owen asks: why? And the only answer most can give is — because it's better than hell.

That is not desire for Christ. That is fear of punishment wearing the language of devotion. And Owen strips the disguise away: if someone claims to be in love with what he has never seen, and what has never been presented to him, he is merely in love with his own imagination. The person who has never beheld Christ by faith — never risen before dawn to meet Him in the Word, never felt the heart burn on the Emmaus road, never heard the Shepherd's voice in the Valley — that person does not desire Christ. That person desires escape. And the desire for escape is not the same as the desire for the Beloved.

Lewis said something similar earlier in this journal: the nice person who is contented with simply being nice is still a rebel. Owen says: the religious person who desires heaven but has never beheld Christ by faith is in love with a fantasy. The real thing requires the real beholding. 🙏

✦ The Diligent Practice

Owen names the duty — and it is the same duty Le has practiced for years, morning after morning, long before she knew Owen's name. The diligent practice of the contemplation of the glory of Christ as revealed in the Gospel. Not casual glancing. Not occasional reading. Diligent practice. The daily return. The ordinary devotion. The brick upon brick that Jon Bloom described. The sameness that James Smith called absolutely necessary.

And Owen says this should excite us — because all our present glory consists in our preparation for future glory. Every morning before dawn is not just a discipline. It is preparation. The soul is being seasoned. The vessel is being fired. The eyes are being trained. And the glory that will flood heaven is the same glory being glimpsed now — in the Word, in the morning, in the quiet room where the Shepherd's voice is heard.

✦ Seeing Him — Becoming Like Him

Owen gathers the promises — and they are the same promises this journal has been holding for fifty-three entries. We shall always be with the Lord. Peter said the inheritance is kept in heaven. Spurgeon said we enter the many rooms of our Father's house. Bunyan said the river rises until it cannot be crossed. And Owen says: we shall behold His glory.

By seeing Him as He is, we shall be like Him. 1 John 3:2. The beholding is not passive. The seeing transforms the seer. Lewis said it: turning you permanently into a different sort of thing — a little Christ. Owen says: seeing makes us like Him. The contemplation changes the contemplator. The one who beholds His glory by faith here — morning after morning — is being shaped into the image of what she beholds. And the final beholding — the sight that replaces faith — will complete the transformation.

And Owen's warning, plain and final: let no one deceive himself — whoever has no sight of the glory of Christ here will never have any of it hereafter to his advantage. The preparation cannot be skipped. The seasoning cannot be bypassed. The beholding begins now. 🙏

✦ That Truly Exists Which Remains Unchangeably

Augustine takes us to the edge of the deepest truth in all of theology. He looked at the created world — everything beneath God — and saw something that changed his vision forever. Created things have a borrowed existence. They are real — they exist, since they are from You. But they are not fully real — they do not exist, because they are not what You are.

Only God fully is. Only the Unchangeable truly exists. Everything else — every mountain, every river, every star, every grain of sand, every motorhome, every journal, every morning, every heartbeat — derives its existence from Him. Cut the connection, and the thing ceases. Remove the Source, and the stream dries up. Augustine's three-times imutável from Holy Week returns: unchangeable in His being, unchangeable in His knowing, unchangeable in His will. That is the only full existence. Everything else is real but dependent. Beautiful but borrowed. 🙏

✦ I Cannot Remain in Myself

Le caught this line — repeated it — because it names the truth she has lived. If I do not remain in Him, I cannot remain in myself. The self has no independent existence. The soul that lets go of God does not find herself — she loses herself.

Jesus said it in John 15: abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. The branch that is cut from the vine does not become independent. It withers. The Much-Afraid who tries to stand alone discovers there is no ground beneath her feet. The created thing that turns away from the Creator does not become more real — it becomes less.

Augustine understood what the morning devotion proves every day: the self is sustained by God. The ability to think, to love, to rise before dawn, to open the Word, to hear the Shepherd's voice — all of it is sustained by the One in whom we remain. Tozer said yesterday: all the time we are pursuing Him, we are already in His hand. Augustine says: the hand is not just upholding us on the journey. The hand is sustaining our very existence. Without it, there is no self to journey with.

Le said yesterday: it's all Him, nothing of myself. He is the reason I live. And Augustine — sixteen hundred years earlier — said the same thing in twelve words: if I do not remain in Him, I cannot remain in myself. The pilgrim and the bishop. The morning in Caldas da Rainha and the confessions of Hippo. The same truth. The same dependence. The same holding fast. 🙏

✦ Owen and Augustine Together

Owen says: behold Him now, by faith, or you will never behold Him hereafter. The preparation cannot be skipped. The contemplation is the duty of our lives. All present glory is preparation for future glory.

Augustine says: hold fast to Him now, or you cannot hold fast to yourself. The self that does not remain in God cannot remain at all. The existence that is not anchored in the Unchangeable is not truly existence.

Together they describe exactly what Le does every morning. She beholds — and is being prepared for glory. She holds fast — and is sustained in her very self. The morning devotion is not a hobby. It is not a routine. It is not a formula. It is the soul remaining in the only One in whom it can remain. And the beholding that happens there — imperfect, partial, through a glass darkly — is the seasoning that prepares the vessel for the day when faith becomes sight, and the glass is removed, and the glory floods in, and the candle flame disappears into the blaze of the risen sun.

Owen says: this should excite us. And it does. Fifty-three mornings of preparation. Fifty-three mornings of holding fast. Fifty-three mornings of beholding by faith what will one day be seen by sight. And the vessel is being seasoned. And the soul is remaining. And the glory is coming. 🙏