June 22
Amos 7:1-9:15; 2 Kings 14:28-29; 2 Kings 15:8-29, 15:6-7; 2 Chronicles 26:22-23; Isaiah 6:1-13
We often think it is bad things or sinful things that block our ability to see and experience God to our fullest. This might indeed be the case, but, often it is not bad things at all, but good things. If in Christ, we all possess gifts and have all been given a commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Often we fail to move forward because we get wrapped up and overly focused on our children, our jobs, our politics, our present circumstances. We think, when our obligations in these areas wane, then we can serve God. Anything, good or bad, that we raise above the One True God, has become a god or idol for us that we then allow to compete for our attention.
Uzziah was a good king. But while he was around, and Isaiah looked to him, Isaiah couldn’t fully see God. We read in Isaiah 6:1, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.” It was then that he could see himself correctly, in 6:5, “So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”” It was only then that Isaiah received his commission in 6:8, “Also 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.”“. As we continue through the book of Isaiah, we see just how much God used him.
Paul, the most prolific writer in the New Testament, was endowed with almost everything on earth a man could desire. This prevented him from seeing God. It took his direct encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road to initiate his ability to see and be used by God. But it did not stop there, as Paul recants in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, “Are they ministers of Christ?—I speak as a fool—I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own country men, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness—“. We may not have to experience all that Paul did, we might not get the vision that Isaiah did, but if we want to move forward with God’s commission we need to get ourselves focused on Him and less on anything else which is not Him. All honor, praise, and glory is from Him and is due Him.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: