One of Those Days

Do you ever have one of those days where you are completely overwhelmed by your own sinfulness? Days when you realize how far you fall short of God’s perfect standard? Inevitably, those are also the days when we see just how perfect God really is. Isaiah 6 is often a chapter I go to on days like this one.

Isaiah 6:1-5 (ESV)
¹ In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.
² Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
³ And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
⁴ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
⁵ And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for 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!”

If we had even the slightest idea of how big, powerful, and glorious our God really is, we would react just like Isaiah. Woe is me! I am lost. We don’t even begin to get close. Yet, there is hope.

Here is another passage that is dear to me, especially on days like today.

1 Corinthians 1:26-31 (ESV)
²⁶ For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,

²⁹ so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

³⁰ And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

³¹ so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

This is such an encouraging passage. See, it’s not what we are that matters – it’s what God will make us that matters. It is all about Jesus Christ. He becomes our wisdom from God, our righteousness and sanctification, and our redemption. It’s not about me: it’s all about Him. It’s not my righteousness that will allow me into the presence of the shekinah glory, it is only the perfect righteousness of Jesus the Moshiach.

With a God that amazing, what is keeping us from displaying Him to the world?