In God's Presence

And 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." And he said, "Go, and say to this people: "'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive... The Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.'" The holy seed is its stump.  
Isaiah 6:8-9,12-13

After encountering the brilliant magnificence, and pure holiness of the living God, Isaiah responds to God's presence with honest repentance and heartfelt confession. The result? The lips of Isaiah were touched with a burning coal from off the alter, the seraphim exclaiming, "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for (Isaiah 6:7)".  This is always the result of getting into the presence of the living God. His brilliance always does two things: First, it's brightness causes our hearts to break, for it reveals perfectly who we are. The result is our hearts repenting, and our mouths confessing before the Lord. Second, it also has the effect of drawing us in at the same time. It's like walking out of a dark movie theater in the late afternoon after seeing a film. As the light hits your eyes, you flinch because it is so much brighter then the environment you were in, while at the same time you turn your face toward the warmth of the sun because it feels good on your skin. After the initial shock of God's brightness, and our initial response of confession, the warmth of God's forgiveness draws us in closer to Him. When this reality is happening in the life of a true believer, there are three things that always result. The above passage illustrates the result of spending time in the presence of God.

First, our needs take a back seat to God's needs. Isaiah, hearing the Lord say, "Who shall we send," immediately responds with his availability for God's purposes. You see, when we have an encounter with the Lord, it produces in us an availability for His purposes. How does that happen? That happens when God is more real to us then our perceived needs. The second thing that God works in us is dependability. God essentially tells Isaiah to preach a message that the people will not respond to. In fact, the message will only, "Dull their hearts (V.10)". For Isaiah, the time spent in God's presence produces a dependability in the face of circumstances that are less then what Isaiah would define as successful. Isaiah's needs no longer mattered. There would be no individual fulfillment for Isaiah. He was dependable because God is what fulfilled him, not how many people listened to him, affirmed him, or complimented him. Is your fulfillment in life defined by how people receive you? Perceive you? Is your fulfillment and dependability in your walk with Jesus Christ dependent upon your own ideas of success or comfort? Those who truly spend time in God's presence are motivated by one thing: Pleasing the One who loved them so much He died in their place. Lastly, an encounter with God produces in us expectancy. Even though the stump (Israel) is burned, and even cut down (V.13), there is a holy seed in it's stump. Isaiah had a heart of expectancy. He trusted that God would bring about salvation. There was indeed a holy seed in the stump. The seed is the person of Jesus Christ that would come from a burned out, cut down nation that had been lost to idolatry. Isaiah expected God to come through.

I pray we would be those that spend time in the brilliance of God's presence, so that we can see who we really are inside. That by seeing who God is and who we are, we can repent and confess our sin. Let us then stay boldly in the warmth of God's grace and love, and respond with availability, dependability, and expectancy for God to continue to work, to move, and to accomplish His purposes for the praise of His glorious name!

Blessings!