We Are Made Worthy
Adam is the CAP Debt Centre Manager at Gas Street St Luke’s and the Operations Manager for Christ Church Summerfield
Isaiah 6:4-7 (NIVUK)
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.”
When I was a student, I went on an Alpha course. During the day focussing on the Holy Spirit, I was praying with the Lead Pastor when he gave me an image and a passage from Isaiah. It sat at the back of my mind until I moved up to Birmingham and joined Christ Church, Summerfield. I found out that they had spent the previous six years praying into another passage from Isaiah, and I decided I wanted to look deeper into this book. When I started digging into it, I found such a depth of wonder and joy that I hope to share a little bit of that over the coming week.
In these verses we see one of the key differences between our present relationship with God and how that relationship is expressed in the Old Testament: Isaiah’s reaction to seeing God was that he was going to be punished for looking at and talking to him. It was only through the vision of a hot coal pressed to his lips that he saw his sin cleansed and he was able to converse with God.
This is so different from our relationship with God: through Jesus’ death we have been forgiven all our sins and no longer have any guilt, highlighted in Romans 8:1 'Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.'
We can fail to take this in and feel instead so 'unworthy' that we must work ever harder to earn God’s love. Gloriously this is not the case: in Jesus, and in him alone, we are made worthy of God's love. All we have to do is grasp this truth and enjoy the close relationship that we have with him in Jesus.
Prayer - Thank you Lord for the love you have shown us. Help us each day to know that the Cross was enough, and we don’t need to do any more to earn this love.