Are We There Yet?
I spend a lot of time praying for the Church and not just the local church but the Body of Christ. I look out into the world from a isolated vantage point. I see a lot of people wearing their Christian badges and proclaiming to be a child of God. I see us saying one thing and doing another. I prayer to God asking why are things the way that they are. A theology instructor once told me that there needs to be more teaching going on. But at times it seems the more we learn the more that our theology takes center stage. I recently heard a sermon by R. C. Sproul; which is apart of a sermon series called “fear and trembling”. He said something that just turned on the lights for me.
Today’s church is so focused on fixing our lives, improving our lives and our relationships with each other. You can go just about anywhere and hear the same thing over and over again. How to line up your life so you can have peace, joy, happiness, and wealth. They teach us to have faith in our faith and to not speak doubt into our lives. They talk about the “next level” as if Christianity is a pyramid scheme. On top of the church doing this, on our own we search high and low trying to find ourselves. We turn to television shows, other people, books, movies, and anything we can get our hands on in order to define ourselves. Some churches tell us to turn to God but we really don’t know what that means, do we? They tell us to keep God first and we think we know what it means to keep God first but we are clueless. The problem is deeper than just taking God out of our lives or not keeping Him first in our little worlds. The problem is that He was never in our lives. Some of us have never really meet Jesus Christ; yet alone made Him Lord over our lives. We just simply repeat some words and think that’s good enough. We don’t even bother to read the bible during the week. There is little or no change in how we live our lives. No I’m not saying that works save you. What I’m saying is that what good does it to tell your spouse that you love them and never show it? Love simply becomes something you say without thinking about it because it means nothing to you.
The world is this way because “Christians” don’t know God and neither do they know themselves. We have to be honest with ourselves to even approach Christ. We have to first admit that we are not good and don’t deserve heaven. If we look at Isaiah and his encounter with God, you will see what I’m talking about.
Isaiah 6:1-10
Isaiah’s Commission
1 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. 2 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. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “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.”
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 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!”9 He said, “Go and tell this people:
” ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’10 Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes. [a]
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Even the angels that God created were not holy enough to stand in God’s glory without covering themselves and yet we call ourselves good. When Isaiah saw this, he cursed his own self saying woe is me I am ruined. Isaiah was no angel but a man, a man who was born a sinner. Isaiah finds himself standing before God and all of His glory. God revealed Himself to Isaiah and at that moment Isaiah realized who God was and how far he was from what God demanded… holiness. The seraphs placed the coal on his lips and God forgave him of his sins. If Isaiah had to be honest with himself before he was made whole, what on earth makes us think that we are different. I doubt anyone has approached the cross like that. The priest couldn’t enter into the holy of holies but once a year and if so without offering a sacrifice they would die on the spot. We have no fear of God, we do not understand that God is holy, holy, holy… Until we realize that we will never know who we are. Once we arrive at that point we will then see God and know without a shadow of a doubt how badly we need a Savior. If you read on, it is after this does Isaiah readily says send me LORD! So we don’t have that desire to spread the Gospel because we still don’t understand what Christ saved us from. And even still hell is not Isaiah’s focal point for obeying God. His reasons for obeying God is out of love, respect and the sheer holiness and glory of God. Do you realize that if one law of God is broken you have broken them all? Do you realize sin equals death? And yet we still live? Not because we are so good but because God loves us. Yes we should all fear the Lord but to look at His grace and mercy; and not let that encourage you to serve Him is crazy. So are we there yet? Only we can answer that individually but only if we are first honest about our lives as Christians.
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