Privilege of Open Communion With God, December 27

All Life's Experiences Will Be Made Plain I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. Revelation 21:22. The people of God are privileged to hold open communion with the Father and the Son. “Now we see through a glass, darkly.” We behold the image of God reflected, as in a mirror, in the works of nature and in His dealings with men; but then we shall see Him face to face, without a dimming veil between. We shall stand in His presence and behold the glory of His countenance.66The Great Controversy, 676, 677. We may address Him by the endearing name, “Our Father,” which is a sign of our affection for Him and a pledge of His tender regard and relationship to us. And the Son of God, beholding the heirs of grace, “is not ashamed to call them brethren.” They have even a more sacred relationship to God than have the angels who have never fallen. All the paternal love which has come down from generation to generation through the channel of human hearts, all the springs of tenderness which have opened in the souls of men, are but as a tiny rill to the boundless ocean when compared with the infinite, exhaustless love of God.67The Review and Herald, October 22, 1908. Heaven is a ceaseless approaching to God through Christ. The longer we are in the heaven of bliss, the more and still more of glory will be opened to us; and the more we know of God, the more intense will be our happiness.68The Desire of Ages, 331. And what is the happiness of heaven but to see God? What greater joy could come to the sinner saved by the grace of Christ than to look upon the face of God and know Him as Father? 69Testimonies for the Church 8:268. How much comfort it gives to behold Him here by the eye of faith, that we may by beholding be made like Him, but what will it be to behold Him as He is, without one dimming veil between? 70Bible Echo and Signs of the Times, January 15, 1892.