When You See the Lord

In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. What Isaiah saw changed his life. Around the throne of God the seraphim continually cry out: “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Is. 6:3).

As Isaiah saw the Lord in His glory for who He is, he could see himself in his sinfulness for who he was. “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Is. 6:5).

Seeing the Lord caused Isaiah to see his own woefulness and his need for cleansing, for sanctification. That is when things changed. A seraph touched his lips with a live coal from off the heavenly alter, “and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Is. 6:7). The Lord is who changes us, but we have to want the change. When you desperately want the old patterns gone, the Lord will help you. But your attitude must be like Paul’s: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The answer and on whom we depend is Jesus Christ our Lord.