Face to Face with God: Winning the Battle of the Image

Introduction

"It is not deliverance we want first. It is not healing we want first. It is not first about getting out of our problems, out of our trials, out of the desert. But in the desert, we come to seek you." This is how Pastor Tonny Tshibangu prays on the second day of the prayer camp at Impact Centre Chrétien (ICC) Montréal, under the title "Face to Face with God."

The theme of the camp is "the battle of the image." The day before, the congregation had cried out to God for the love of God. This Saturday is the "second round": a day centered on worship and contemplation. More than a continuous sermon, it is a long guided prayer, interspersed with teaching, in which the pastor leads the Church to contemplate the Father and to become like him.

His conviction fits in one sentence: "When you contemplate him as he is, he ends up grafting his image into you." To illustrate it, he opens the Bible to the prayer of Jesus, to Jacob at Peniel, and to Hannah at the temple in Shiloh.

Message Outline

1. Standing Before God Is a Grace

• The pastor begins with gratitude: "Standing in God's presence is a grace. Breathing is a grace. Speaking is a grace. Being next to your brother and your sister is a grace."
• He gives thanks for his spiritual parents and lays down a principle: "What we become always depends on who we follow."
• Before teaching, he invites everyone to greet three people and ask their names: "When you know the name, you end up developing communion."
• Then he prays: "No one can come to you unless you draw him" (John 6:44). He confesses human inability: "We do not know how to pray. We do not even know how to love you. You are the one who can make us love you." (Romans 8:26)
• Seeing God as he is comes neither from the flesh nor from human emotions: it is the Spirit who searches the depths of God and reveals them to us (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).

2. Another Dimension, Where the Self Disappears

• God's will, says the pastor, is "that we be the visible representation of the invisible God," that he alone be seen and recognized through us.
• He calls this "another dimension," the one Paul reached: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). A dimension where "the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me" (John 14:30).
• "When the self is there, anger is there. When the self is there, selfishness is there." All that is left is talk of "my interests, my projects, my work, my success," and the mandate, evangelism, and the salvation of souls are forgotten.
• The pastor prays not to be "like Jonahs" to whom God says go, and who set out for Tarshish (Jonah 1:3). The world is waiting for "the revealing of the children of God" (Romans 8:19), but in the meantime, the Church looks at itself, criticizes itself, and fights itself.
• The fruit of this dimension is visible: "fear gives way to confidence, worry gives way to peace." He speaks of "the confidence of the young lion."
• He quotes Acts 4:13: the leaders see the boldness of Peter and John, uneducated men of the common people, and recognize "that they had been with Jesus." "It will not depend on where we come from, on our villages, on our past, on our mistakes. It will depend on our thirst."

3. Thirst, the Protocol of the Encounter

• "Only a dissatisfied person can cry out for another dimension. When you accept the dimension where you are and believe it is the limit, there is no other dimension for you."
• The pastor compares the congregation to David, thirsting for God in a dry and weary land (Psalm 63:1).
• "Thirst is the protocol by which you are drawn. When there is no thirst, you do not even want the Word. It is thirst that drives you to love."
• To cry out to God is to surrender to him and ask for his help. And it takes perseverance: "Don't tell me: I cried out yesterday." Will God not avenge his chosen ones, who are crying out to him day and night (Luke 18:7)? This cry is inward: "It is not just the cry of the mouth, it is the cry of a heart that says: I want to be saturated with you."
• "Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now" (Isaiah 43:19). The pastor invites us to refuse "the old version": to forget the old mistakes, the bitterness, the rejections, and the offenses that used to fill the heart. You do not put new wine into old wineskins (Matthew 9:17).
• In a crowd that sings, not everyone lives the same thing: "It all depends on the thirst that drives you." There are times when God wants to meet you alone, "one in the crowd."
• He also calls us to carry others, like the hundred and twenty in the upper room or the paralytic's friends: "It is not me, it is us."

4. Contemplating the Father: His Image Is Grafted Into You

• The pastor relays a revelation received by "his servant": when we say "Our Father," we are contemplating his face, that is, who he is. "When we speak of his face, we speak of his image."
• "Our Father is love. When I contemplate him as love, I end up being struck by his love myself and revealing his love."
• "Our Father is provider. The more I contemplate him as provider, the more I am delivered from selfishness," because you yourself become a person who shows generosity.
• The Father is protector. By contemplating him this way, you receive the image of someone who watches over his brothers and sisters and intercedes for them, as Jesus prayed for Peter when Satan had asked to sift him (Luke 22:31-32), and as the Father who so loved the world that he gave his Son (John 3:16).
• Our God is great: "When I say Our Father, I see him as great, to the point that I become smaller. And in my heart, that is humility."
• He is a Father of compassion. Where your earthly father failed, "you have a good Father." He adopted you, he brought you back into the house: "No matter your mistakes, no matter your foolishness, no matter your sin." He even does better than the father of the prodigal son.
• Contemplating this Father frees you from isolation: "You no longer see yourself as the only one, you tell yourself: there are others." And from fear: "There is a God who keeps you, there is a God who has put you on his agenda." Seek his face continually (Psalm 105:4). Moses held firm "as seeing him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11:27).

5. Contemplation Happens With the Scriptures

• "Contemplation happens with the Scriptures. You look at the stories." The pastor cites Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: the fire did not consume them, not even the smell of fire had come on them (Daniel 3:27). "This is the God we contemplate."
• While you contemplate, "there is a work being done": a confidence arriving, a courage returning, a heart that forgives, gentleness, patience.
• God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires that they turn and live (Ezekiel 33:11): as you contemplate him as the patient God, his patience is reflected in you. Jesus had compassion on the crowds, who were like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36): his compassion becomes ours.
• The psalmist prays: "Make your face shine on your servant. Save me in your loving kindness" (Psalm 31:16). When God makes his face shine on you, "it is peace, it is confidence, it is courage, it is salvation, it is deliverance."
• The pastor has the congregation proclaim the names of God: excellent, wonderful, awesome, invincible, glorious. "We are not just singing, we are putting the Word into contemplation."
• "When you contemplate him as the awesome God, in reality, you are the one who becomes feared." He recalls Philip arriving in Samaria, where Simon the magician held the city under his sway (Acts 8:9-13), and the serpent that swallowed those of Pharaoh's magicians (Exodus 7:12, where it is Aaron's rod that swallows their rods). "They will fight against you; but they will not prevail against you" (Jeremiah 1:19).
• He also reminds us that we are wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).

6. Jacob and Hannah: The Encounter That Changes the Face

• Jacob is afraid of Esau. He had usurped, he was manipulative, and he flees. In his flight, he meets God and wrestles until he says: "I won't let you go, unless you bless me" (Genesis 32:26).
• "As I meditated, I ended up understanding," says the pastor. What blessing was he seeking? God asks him a question: "What is your name?" God already knows what image you carry: "Maybe the image is not very clear yet. Maybe the image is still blurry."
• Jacob answers, and God says: "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel" (Genesis 32:28). "The real blessing of his life was this change. It was not first about being kept safe from Esau. He needed to be transformed."
• "Our real need is not first marriage. It is not first money. It is not first things. Our real need is his image." Because "you can have the money and lose everything."
• Jacob calls this place Peniel, because he has seen God face to face (Genesis 32:30). It is also the blessing that Aaron was to pronounce over Israel: "Yahweh make his face to shine on you" (Numbers 6:24-26). The pastor pronounces it over the congregation: "may you be changed, transformed into another man."
• A second witness: Hannah (1 Samuel 1). She prays inwardly, only her lips moving. Eli watches her mouth, he does not see her heart. "God answers your heart. God does not necessarily answer what you say. It is your heart that will determine your answer." As he had said the day before, it is not about multiplying words like the pagans (Matthew 6:7).
• Hannah pours out her heart before Yahweh, and her face is no longer the same (1 Samuel 1:15-18). It was not the priest Eli who came to change Hannah's face: "It is the encounter." And the pastor adds: Hannah speaks of Yahweh, "but we have a Father, a good and perfect Father." When we turn our eyes to him, we are radiant with joy (Psalm 34:5).

7. Breaking Out of Cycles That Go in Circles

• At the end of the gathering, the pastor calls those who live in "a repeating cycle": of failure, unemployment, losses. "You have a job, you lose it. It comes back, it comes back."
• This cycle "is not the will of God." The pastor prays: "You never send a word for nothing," and he declares freedom, because it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1).
• He clarifies the meaning of this deliverance: God is "bringing us back to love." Inner transformation remains the heart of the camp.

Key Takeaways

• The battle of the image comes first: God wants Christ to be seen through you, to the point that the self disappears.
• Thirst is the protocol of the encounter. Only a dissatisfied person cries out for another dimension.
• You become what you contemplate: contemplating the Father as love, provider, or protector grafts his image into you.
• Contemplation is nourished by the Scriptures: you put the Word into worship.
• Your deepest need is not first money or marriage, but his image, like Jacob who became Israel.

Personal Application

• What are you asking God for first right now: a way out of the desert, or his presence in the middle of the desert?
• In what areas does the "self" take over in your life: your interests, your projects, your success?
• When you say "Our Father," which side of God are you contemplating? Which one do you need to rediscover this week?
• What passage of the Bible can you meditate on to contemplate God, rather than only presenting your requests to him?
• Like Jacob, what "old version" of yourself do you need to hand over to God so that he can transform it?

Verses Cited

• Genesis 32:24-30
• Numbers 6:24-26
• 1 Samuel 1:12-18
• Psalm 34:5
• Galatians 2:20
• Acts 4:13
• John 14:30
• Romans 8:19
• Psalm 63:1
• Luke 18:7
• Isaiah 43:19
• Psalm 105:4
• Luke 22:31-32
• John 3:16
• Hebrews 11:27
• Daniel 3:27
• Matthew 9:36
• Psalm 31:16
• Acts 8:9-13
• Jeremiah 1:19
• Galatians 5:1
• John 6:44
• Romans 8:26
• 1 Corinthians 2:10-11
• Jonah 1:3
• Matthew 9:17
• Matthew 6:7
• Ezekiel 33:11
• Exodus 7:12
• Psalm 139:14

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the battle of the image?

It is the theme of the ICC Montréal prayer camp: being transformed into the image of Christ, to the point that people no longer see the man but Christ through him. For Tonny Tshibangu, it is God's will that we be the visible representation of the invisible God, a dimension where the self disappears and where Christ is fully formed in us.

How do you contemplate God according to Tonny Tshibangu?

Contemplation happens with the Scriptures. You look at who God is through his Word and the stories of the Bible: a Father of love, a provider, a protector, a great, patient, liberating God. The more you contemplate him as he is, the more his image is grafted into you: love replaces fear, generosity replaces selfishness, humility replaces pride.

What blessing did Jacob receive at Peniel?

Jacob wrestles and says: "I won't let you go, unless you bless me" (Genesis 32:26). God asks him his name, then changes it: he will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. For Tonny Tshibangu, the real blessing was not first being kept safe from Esau, but being transformed. Jacob calls this place Peniel, because he has seen God face to face.