Isaiah 6
This chapter describes the glory of our Lord God on His Throne in Glory, with the Temple in Heaven and the magnificence of it all.
And God calls Isaiah: Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us?
And I said, Here I am. Send me!
He said, Go ...
Our Lord God is sitting on His magnificent Throne in Heaven where He lives. And when He calls Isaiah, He speaks in the first person plural, "Us."
But He tells Isaiah that the people will refuse to hear, to see, and to understand.
How often do people today refuse to see and hear what is right in front of them, so they don't understand what it's all about; Who God is and how much He loves us?
Because when we can see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, then we will understand with our hearts; only then will we turn (repent means "turn around") and be healed (physically, mentally, spiritually, socially, environmentally; every way).
We must be willing to change our minds about how we think about what has been happening to us and around us; to "re-frame" our hurts and sorrows and failures, to see "what else can this mean?"
We need to be willing to see things the way God sees them, and to understand how everything He allows to happen is for our good. Because He loves us, while we're here in this life, it's like we're in school. Galatians 3:24 talks about Law being our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. We don't have a teacher any more that will rap our knuckles with a ruler, but we still cannot escape from the consequences of what we've done, even when we confess and are forgiven.
We can learn how to be better people, how to know Who God is, and how much He loves us, through how He brings us through all the tests of life. Will we pass? Or will we need to take that test again?
God will never give up on us. He is relentless. If we run from His testings, He will chase us down (the Shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one that ran away). If we fail the test, He will give us a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, until we finally learn how to pass it.
As humans we tend to be real knuckleheads sometimes. We tend to hold on to what's comfortable for us, even when it hurts. We won't change until it hurts more to stay the same than it does to change. We don't respond to the heat, only to the fire. Why is that?
Why do we have to be "forced" to do better, dragged in kicking and screaming? It's because we've swallowed Satan's lie whole, that we can make our own decisions, no one can tell us what to do. We're our own god, we don't need God. This pride and arrogance has kept so many from turning to the only One Who is our Source, the One Who loves us more than we can imagine. And they will stay on that painful course that leads to death.
But those who decide they want to have the Truth, even if they'll have to give up what they believe now; then God will reveal Himself and His ways to them. He's promised: "When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you" (Jeremiah 29:13-14). This is a conditional promise: If you--then I will.
God always does what He's promised. But we also need to do what is required.
Not all His promises are conditional. Some things He will do regardless what we do. But we need to really pay attention to the conditional ones.
When we honestly seek God, then He will reveal Himself to us. When I was looking for the Truth, it didn't matter to me if it would be what I already believed or something completely different or something in-between. I just didn't want to be deceived. I wanted to know the Truth so I could believe it.
I didn't know that God is Truth. But He came to me that day, showed me Jesus on the Cross, and I knew He didn't deserve all that because I did. He took my place in death.
That's when God forgave me everything I ever did, or will do. That's when He washed me white as snow in the Blood of the Lamb. That's when He put His Holy Spirit into me, in my spirit, making me alive spiritually.
And all the "truth-systems" I'd been investigating, I could see now why none of them convinced me--they all had some form of deception wrapped in truth.
And I had a new power to choose what was right, instead of falling into sin again. It was a choice I never realized I had before: God set me free from the slavery of that addiction.
That day I gave my life to God. And for a while I went totally passive. I didn't know how to run my life, everything I tried just put me into a worse situation, so I let Him make all the decisions for me.
Later, when I was able to learn some of the Bible, I got serious and started to look for what I could do to cooperate with God.
That was all so many decades ago, and He has kept His promise to never leave me or forsake me to my own devices. As long as I seek His Face and His ways, He has taken good care of me. He has been such a good, good Father to me. He has led me and guided me into so many paths I wouldn't have taken on my own. And His protection keeps me from harm.
Every trial and sorrow that comes, I try to see what I am to learn from it, how He wants to bless me in it or because of it. He has never failed me.
My desire with this blog is for you also to know my wonderful God, Who is the Source of everything that is good, everything we need. Starting with that Rescue, that Salvation He has provided in His Son.
May you also seek God with all your heart, that you may be found of Him.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
