This Thursday, I am leaving with a group for a missions trip. Please keep me in your prayers. Each morning, after breakfast and before we start our day, we will do a devotional. Everyone is responsible for putting together one devotional for our group. Here are the notes of the devotional that I am preparing. Please note that when I refer to the death of the good King, I am also referencing the death of a key figure in this orphans ministry who recently passed away. This man was a mighty man of God who gave his all in the Lord's Service. He is hugely missed personally by us and by the children whom he served. In addition, how do we replace this pivotal figure in the Ministry?
Are We Ready To Serve?
Scripture Reading— Isaiah 6:1-9
1) In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2) Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3) And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4) At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5) “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” 6) Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7) With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 8) Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 9) He said, “Go and tell this people. (I’m going to stop there).
There is something about Chapter 6 of Isaiah which I couldn’t get out of my mind in the weeks leading up to this trip. There is something here for us as we embark on this mission to serve God, “Here I am Lord” and to “Go and tell the people.” Chapter 6 starts out announcing the death of a King. He was one of the good kings of Judah. His reign represented some sort of height in Israel’s history. The death of someone so important precedes the vision of Isaiah. Is anyone getting this?
A good king dies, a good leader goes home to be with the Lord and those left behind need a new vision to carry on. So, as the good king dies, Isaiah sees a vision of Gods’ holiness. Isaiah’s commission begins with a vision of Gods holiness. We have to reflect upon and know who God is before we are ready to say, “Here I am Lord.”
In this reading we learn that Isaiah is let into the inner sanctum of heaven. What happens next is truly amazing. He is utterly broken. He is like the good thief beside Jesus on the cross who sees a vision of holiness and knows it when he sees it.
Isaiah sees holiness, knows what it is and he completely gets the fact that beside God that he is a sinner. He knows that those around him are sinners too. So, before we can be ready to serve God, “Here I am Lord”. We have to be in touch with our sin nature.
The next thing that we see in verses 6 and 7 is that after this confession of sin, there is remission of sin. We need to go to God at this time confess our sin and cleanse ourselves as we ready ourselves for what God has for us today or in the future of this Ministry.
Prayer: Almighty God and Father, today I think anew of this vision of your holiness. I confess my unworthiness before your holy throne but I know that you have made a way for us to be worthy through the atoning death of Jesus Christ. We ask you to cleanse us and ready us to serve you Lord and we declare, “ here we are Lord to serve you.’
Amen.
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