Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” I said, “Here I am. Send me.” Isaiah 6:8 NLT
I suspect that none of us really sees ourselves except in the light of the Lord. I am a past grand master at self-justification. The blaze of the Lord just wipes that all away. Why does Isaiah say, “I am a man of unclean lips”? I think it’s because revelation has that impact on us. Isaiah wanted to tell people that he had seen the Lord but he realized that he could not do it in his unclean state. That’s really what sin is about—defilement in the presence of the Holy One. Our problems are not maladjustment or poor family backgrounds, cultural deprivation, our problem is uncleanness. The reason it’s so difficult for us to recognize that and admit it is because all too often we insulate ourselves from that vision of God. Apart from him we look pretty good.
All too often you and I have this feeling that God is so fortunate to have us on His side. Why does God reveal Himself to us and ourselves to us? To destroy us so we’re finally forced to admit how far gone we are? No. In order that having come to know ourselves we may receive His free gift of salvation.
What we all need is somebody who is free to speak the revelation of God to us, not for themselves, but so the word that comes out is clean. God said, “Whom shall I send, who will go for us?” Is it possible that when we have really seen the Lord, when we have really seen ourselves, and when we have really received His provision for us for our uncleanness, He won’t have to put His thumb in our backs to get us to do what He’s calling us to do? Is it possible that a gentle whispering will cause us to move toward a broken lost world to speak to them for Him? I think God has a hard time holding back His tears when somebody finally volunteers to bear the heart of God to the world.
Called To Be Transformed 