Discovering Hope With James W. GollSample

The Beauty Realm of the Lord

God wants you to love yourself, but I will tell you, there have been times that I have not liked at all the state that I have been in. A few months ago, I compared a recent picture with a picture of myself ten years ago. I had no idea how bad I looked ten to twelve years ago because I was in the middle of cancer, toxins, radiation, immune therapy, so many drugs and medications, and I was carrying a lot of water weight.

I remember when Heidi Baker looked at me and said, “James, you’re doing better, but your color is gray, and you need some help.” She referred me to a professional place where I could go to detox. Guess what? God gives beauty for ashes because I look better today than I did ten years ago. I was in the fire. I’ve been refined by fire. Now I hope I still carry a fire on the inside and that God’s fire will radiate through me.

I’m telling you my story, but this is not about me. This is for you because the picture I’m painting is about the master painter. He can take us into his beauty realm and make something beautiful from our ashes.

God gave me an encounter in his beauty realm. I was attending a prophetic conference. Although I was friends with those putting on the conference, it was not a stream I normally minister in, so I kind of held back during the entire conference.

Then the last night, the prophetic worship was so profound that I just couldn’t handle it any longer. I went up to the front, stood near some huge speakers, and made one of my lavish statements. I said, “Blast me with everything you got.” Well, if God blasted me with everything he has, I would be ashes for sure, but what I got was an interactive encounter with the Lord where he invited me to climb a stairway into heaven, one step at a time.

The stairway would come at times to a plateau. I would stop, and then I would look through the clouds, as it were, to see another set of stairs. I would climb each new set of stairs I discovered. The higher I went, the more the atmosphere filled with light, majesty, and the brilliant presence of the Lord.

Eventually I came to a platform where I saw the Lord shining in hot, white light. His light was all I could see. This revelation of the beauty of the Lord overwhelmed me. Raptured by his beauty, I started proclaiming over and over again as though I was in the audience of one, “You’re beautiful! You are so beautiful!”

I began to sob in the revelation, not out of sorrow, but out of exhilaration. One glance at the beauty of God can make all the sacrifice worth it. David knew this, and told us so in Psalm 27:4–6.

Paul also knew this, so he wrote 2 Corinthians 3:18. As we gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, we reflect his image. We go from glory to glory, and we become changed into a radiant, shining light. We take on the characteristics of whom or what we behold. What we behold, we become like.