Wednesday, September
2, 2015, 7:13 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song, “Unless You are Born Again.” Speak,
Lord, your words to my heart. I read Isaiah
6:1-10 (NASB).
Holy is The Lord
(vv. 1-4)
In
the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and
exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above
Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he
covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said,
“Holy,
Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,
The
whole earth is full of His glory.”
And
the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out,
while the temple was filling with smoke.
The word “holy” means “apartness, separateness, sacredness.”
With regard to God’s holiness, it carries with it the idea that he is like no
other. He is high above all others. None can compare to him. He is absolutely
perfect, without sin, and fully righteous in all that he does. He is our
creator, and he holds all things together. He is absolutely sovereign (supreme
in authority) over all that he created. He is all powerful, all knowing, and
present everywhere all at the same time. So, he is to be honored, revered and
esteemed above all others. We, as human beings, are to give him our full
respect, obedience, and submission to his authority over our lives.
As well, he has called us to be holy, which means we are to
be set apart from the world of sin because we are being conformed into the
image of Christ. We, as his followers, are not supposed to be like the world,
but we are supposed to be like Jesus in all that we are, and do and say. Yet,
in today’s modern church, we have all but lost the fear of the Lord. So, many who
profess his name have become all too casual and even disrespectful with regard
to their relationships to God/Jesus, taking him and his grace to us for
granted.
Woe is Me (vv.
5-7)
Then
I said,
“Woe
is me, for I am ruined!
Because
I am a man of unclean lips,
And
I live among a people of unclean lips;
For
my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
Then
one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had
taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold,
this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is
forgiven.”
When we are presented with a holy God who humbled himself,
took on human flesh, and was willing to die on a cross for our sins so that we
could be set free, it should bring us to tears, and we should be broken and
humble before him with regard to our sin, especially in contrast to his divine
holiness and glory.
I can still remember the day when I was at camp. I was maybe
7 years old at the time. Our camp was right at Lake Erie in Ohio, so the
pavilion sat on a hill overlooking the lake. The building was completely open,
i.e. it had no walls, but it did have a roof. It had hard wooden benches for
seats. It was in the heat of the summer. The preacher was preaching the gospel.
The invitation was given to receive Jesus Christ. I sat in my seat and just
wept over my sin, and I prayed for God to forgive me and cleanse me of my sin
and to make me a new creature in Christ Jesus. I wanted to be his forever! And,
the Lord heard my prayer, he forgave me of my sin, and he came into my life to
live within me in the person of his Holy Spirit, and to lead and guide me in
the way he wanted me to go from that day forward.
I didn’t become instantly perfect, though. The Christian
life has been a life of growing in his grace, falling down sometimes, and him
picking me back up and putting me back on the right path. Yet, he was and is
always with me, always speaking his words tenderly to my heart, always showing
me the right way to go, and always giving me all that I need to walk daily in
his truth, to grow in his grace, and to mature in his love.
You see, this is the type of response the holiness and awesomeness
of Almighty God should invoke in our lives. Now, I know that such a response
can also be emotional only, and that true repentance might not possibly take
place, so tears of sorrow over sin is not necessarily an indicator of true
repentance. People can have emotional experiences which never stay with them,
or which stay with them only a short while because genuine faith never took
root. And, this is also not to say that if we lack this type of tearful
response that we have not truly repented of our sins. Yet, what I am saying is
that when we are presented with a holy God, as was Isaiah, that it should bring
us to our knees in all humility before God, and we should acknowledge our sin
to God and our need of him and of his salvation.
Jesus Christ died for our sins, not just so we could escape
hell and have the promise of heaven when we die. He died that we might die to
sin and live to righteousness. This is the essence of the gospel of our
salvation, for if we have not been crucified with Christ to sin, and we have
not been resurrected with Christ to newness of life, “created to be like God in
true righteousness and holiness,” then we have not truly been born again. We
are not saved from our sins, but we are still dead in our sins and bound for
hell. The old us has to die in order for the new us to come alive, yet this is
not something that happens once, then we just live our lives, and then we go to
heaven when we die. We must daily, by the Spirit, put to death the deeds of the
flesh and conduct our lives according to the Spirit, and not according to the
flesh. God’s grace, which brings salvation, teaches us to say “No” to
ungodliness and worldly passions and desires, and to live self-controlled,
upright and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s soon return (See: Tit.
2:11-14; Ro. 8:1-14; Eph. 4:24).
Send Me (vv.
8-10)
Then
I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for
Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep
on listening, but do not perceive;
Keep
on looking, but do not understand.’
“Render
the hearts of this people insensitive,
Their
ears dull,
And
their eyes dim,
Otherwise
they might see with their eyes,
Hear
with their ears,
Understand
with their hearts,
And
return and be healed.”
When we have humbled ourselves before Almighty God in
humility and in repentance, and he has forgiven us of our sins, and has given
us new lives in Christ Jesus to be lived in his righteousness and holiness, all
in the power and working of the Spirit within us, our Lord will show us what he
has for us to be and to do. The Holy Spirit within us gives each one of us
gifts of the Spirit, and God assigns each of us tasks (roles, parts) within the
body of Christ which are ours to be and do.
When the Apostle Paul was transformed of the Spirit of God
on his way to Damascus, he immediately was told what he was to do. He was to go
to Jew and Gentile alike, and he was to open their blinded eyes, turn them from
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they could
receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified through
faith in Christ Jesus (See: Ac. 26:16-18). This, as well, is the essence of the
gospel of our salvation. And, it is what we are all commissioned to do, i.e. to
open blinded eyes and to turn them from sin to the light of God’s holiness.
This is what it means to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth,
and to make disciples of Christ of people of all nations. By our lives and by
the words we speak we turn the hearts of people away from living for sin and
self to living for God and for his will and his purposes.
Yet, not everyone will receive the message with joy. There
will be those who will slam the door in our faces, who will reject us and the
message, and who may even persecute and ridicule us, or even kill us for our
testimonies of God’s saving grace in our lives. They will close their ears to
the truth because the lies sound better, because the lies allow them to live
however they want without the fear of the Lord in their lives, while still
promising them heaven when they die. Yet, we must continue in the faith we have
been taught by Jesus Christ and by his NT apostles, and we must continue to
share the truth of the gospel so that many will be saved before Jesus Christ
returns for his bride.
Unless You Are Born
Again
An Original Work / November 3, 2013
Based off John 3:1-21
Nicodemus came to Jesus.
He acknowledged God was with Him.
Jesus said, “You can’t see heaven
Unless you are born again.”
“How can a man be born when he’s old?
Can he enter into his mother’s womb?”
Jesus answered, “Flesh is flesh,
So of the Spirit, you must be.”
Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“You’re a teacher, and yet you don’t
Understand of what I tell you,
Because you will not believe.
“For God so loved the world that He gave
His one and His only Son for your sin.
So, whoever believes in Him
Has eternal life in heav’n.
“Light has come into the world,
But human beings love the darkness,
Because their deeds are so evil,
So in truth, they stand condemned.
“Everyone who practices evil
Fears that the Light will expose his sin.
Yet, whoever lives his life by the Light
Does so through his God.”
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