What Does It Take to Be Used By God? (October 15, 2008)

I was reading one of my favorite passages recently and I saw it in a whole new light. It comes from Isaiah 6:1-8,
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

As I was reading this passage, I was struck by several things:
1. When God revels Himself to us, we are awestruck by our own sinfulness and lowliness. In a word we are humbled.
2. There is nothing we can do, of our own merit, to lift ourselves up out of our sinful state. We require a touch from God. Only He can forgive us our sins and restore us to a right relationship with Him, a relationship whereby He can have fellowship with us and use us to do His work.
3. God has work for us to do. He does not need us to do His work, but He does choose us to do His work. God chooses to accomplish His work though people like you and me.
4. When we have been humbled and forgiven, there is only one right response to His call on our lives, an enthusiastic, “pick me”!
This is an incredible foreshadowing of what Jesus Christ did for us. In the Gospel of John 1:1-4 it says,
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

The “Word” here is referring to Jesus. He was God’s perfect revelation of Himself to humans. As we come to understand Him, we are humbled by our own sin. He died and rose again to forgive us from our sin and re-establish a right relationship with God. He now calls on us to do his work as he says in Matthew 9:37-38, “Then He (Jesus) said to His disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field."

For a long time I thought I was doing god's will, but I had not really laid down my life for Him to use me in ANY way HE wanted to. I always had my own ideas of what I should be doing for Him. It wasn't until He completely humbled my heart was I was ready to be used by Him the way HE wanted to use me.

Question: Have you been humbled and forgiven? If so, what is Jesus asking you to do for Him right now? Are you enthusiastically available? What will your response be?