This Week’s Word / Isaiah 6:1-3, 5
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.”
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.”
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In a vision, Isaiah sees the glory of God and immediately realizes his own sinfulness and perceives his own destruction for having laid sinful eyes on an all-powerful God. “Woe to me,” he says. For such an offense as seeing (casting one’s eyes up at a sovereign King) God, one was usually put to death. Yet in God’s infinite grace, Isaiah was allowed to see the divine and incomprehensible majesty of God’s Glory and he trembled with awesome reverence and fear.
When we are in the presence of God, our own loathsome sinful nature is exposed and we become even more aware of how filthy we are as sinners. Most of us have never really known or experienced the feeling of utter helplessness and total surrender in the presence of overwhelming power and Glory. Many of us have never felt the fear of certain death yet the redemption of unexpected grace. This is what Isaiah must have felt as he witnessed the Glory of God. He expected to die for having seen God and was compelled by self-loathing to confess his sinfulness and the sinfulness of his people.
As creatures born into sin and shaped by iniquity, we should approach our Holy God with awesome reverence in recognition of His Majesty and Glory that could easily and justifiable dispatch us at anytime.
O’ wow are we.
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This Week’s Prayer
Most Holy Father God, I pray that You would forgive us for all the times that we have come into Your presence without awesome reverence and worshipful respect. Please forgive our attitudes of entitlement. I know that we are not worthy to be called Your children for we were born into sin and shaped in iniquity. Nothing good dwells in our flesh. Our carnality wars against Your Holy Spirit and we repent. Please forgive us O’ Lord. We despise ourselves and the lusts of our flesh. We are disgusted by our sinful nature and seek Your forgiveness. Have mercy on us Oh Lord! Save us from our sins. Help us to live holy lives. You are worthy of all Praise and Glory! Empower us to live a life of continual worship and praise – one that brings glory and honor to Your Name. In the matchless name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we pray, Amen!