isaiah 6.

So, Isaiah 6 has always been one of my favorite passages. Isaiah just portrays an amazing picture of worship and brokenness. His confession is convicting as he exemplifies that we must come before God with clean hands and a pure heart. As He sees the holiness of God, he realizes his sin and comes before God with a repentant heart. God in His forgiveness and grace tells Isaiah his guilt is taken away and his sin is atoned for. It’s just so incredible how a holy God accepts filth like us. It should be humbling and it should break us. Although in this lifetime we will never understand or see the full glory of God and his holiness, Isaiah attempts to vividly describe his vision of the throne room of God. He describes the reaction of the angels to the presence of God. They cry out, not just “Holy,” but “Holy, holy, holy,” to emphasize the perfect holiness of God. God is perfectly, completely holy and set apart from us. Like I said, we will never be able to fathom His holiness, but what we do grasp about our Creator should be enough to motivate us to live lives of radical obedience to His Word. In this passage, the angels also declare, “The whole earth is full of His glory.” From the heights of heaven, you can see the end of the earth and know that one day God will return and every competing glory will be struck down and God will make his holiness known in awesome splendor to all of His redeemed. The glory of the Father, His perfect holiness, and the desire to see Him worshipped should be our motivation to go to the ends of the earth. It should drastically change the way we live our lives. This passage was very convicting for me as I read it in a coffee shop weeks back. Yes, I have surrendered these two years of my life to sharing the Gospel in a foreign land, but reading this passage made me examine my reason for answering the call. I have no doubt the Father wants me right where I am and am confident He worked out the “when” as well, but I think back to what exactly motivated me. I think about the burden on my heart for the nations. I want them to come to know Christ. I think about the vast lostness in the country where I’m serving. I want these people to hear the Gospel. I think about my desire to fight every injustice that lives. I want to help these people who are sold into slavery, the people who don’t have a roof over their head or haven’t had a meal in weeks, the children and women neglected and beaten by their drunk father or husband. None of these are bad motives. But what good is it to go to these people, help them, and even share the Gospel with them if the main purpose isn’t the glory of the King of Kings who deserves for every ounce of our day to be lived in praise and worship of His name. Our motivation should be seeing the splendor of the glory of God and being awe-struck by His holiness that is revealed to us in our worship of Him through His Word. This alone should drive us to our knees. This alone can truly break our hearts for the lost…for the wickedness and darkness of this world. This alone should be our reason for sharing the Gospel.