The prophet Isaiah had a vision of God. For many people this sounds like a pretty cool thing to do; having a front row seat in seeing God- what could be more entertaining? It sure beats watching a repeat of ‘Home and Away’ again!
But for Isaiah seeing God almost killed him! Why? Because for the very first time he became brutally aware of how unlike God he was. In particular he became painfully aware of how morally dirty his life was in comparison to God. Perhaps before this Isaiah had felt pretty okay about himself as, even if he wasn’t perfect, he sure was a lot better than a good few people he could name! But the day the prophet met God was the day all such false standards got blown out of the water. It really didn’t matter how good or bad other people were, because their goodness or badness was not the standard by which God goes by. God’s standard is His own perfect holiness and righteousness. Any deviation from this yardstick is what the Bible calls sin.
So forget about your neighbour, or the guy down the street, how does your life compare to God’s standard? If you are like me- you are in deep, deep trouble. So much so that simply ‘turning over a new leaf’ or ‘trying a bit harder’ is going to be as good as pulling on your boot laces to launch yourself into orbit...
It would be really easy to just rush on to ‘the good news’ but unless, like Alcoholics Anonymous, you are will to simply put your hand up and say, without reservation,- ‘I am a sinner’ then there is no hope.
For everybody else there is real and certain hope, because God had not come to terrify but to save, so stay tuned for my next article!