It was in the year that King Uzziah died, that I saw the Lord Isaiah 6:1a
In this great chapter of Isaiah is the pattern for all of us when we are caught in the convulsions of shaking human society: “I saw the Lord.” That has to happen to you and me again and again—that we are refocused upon the Lord, that our attention is lifted away from whatever the crisis may be and is focused upon Him.
Why do we start there? The answer is revelation. It is that the Lord has broken in upon his world, that the Lord has revealed Himself to us when we weren’t looking for Him. There’s no evidence that Abraham was looking for God. He was just minding his own business. God shows up and says, “I’m going to give you a baby, a land, and a name.” There’s no evidence that Moses was looking for God. He was 80 years old and minding sheep. It was over. Then a bush caught on fire and it was God! It is only that Abraham and Moses and Isaiah were somehow in a position where they could be broken in upon. I believe with all my heart that the battle we are called upon to fight begins with the Lord breaking in upon our world, upon our lives.
The battle in the church has been, is, and will always be over revelation. The revelation that we have in the Bible is not of a great-grandfather in the sky; the revelation of God that we have in the Bible is of the King who comes and demands submission. He doesn’t invite it, he doesn’t suggest it, he demands it. He is the King. And he is the only King. There is no other God than he. He is the only holy one, He is the only one in all of eternity who has the right to be called holy. It is his glory that fills the earth.
Have we had a vision of God that is so compelling that it will hold us fast when Jerusalem is in ruins and triumphant Babylon laughs in our faces? That’s what it will take, that kind of a reality of God in our lives and in our experience. The world may be in ruins and in flames, but God is God.
Called To Be Transformed 