Tues Inspiration

Morning Inspiration with Pastor Merritt

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8,)

Isaiah is now so close to God he can ease-drop in on a conference call that is taking place between the Trinity. It is obvious the Lord wasn’t just talking to Himself. He said,

“Who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8)

Once you see God for who He really is you will want to surrender everything you are to everything He is. Isaiah responds the way we all should,

“Here am I! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)

That is so refreshing because most people when God says, “Whom should I send? Who will go for Us?” They don’t say, “Here am I. Send me.” They say, “There he is. Send him.”

The measure of the depth of your relationship to God is surrender, because the deeper your relationship the greater your surrender. Here is how you will know that you are hitting on all 8 cylinders in your relationship with God. It doesn’t matter what God asks you to do you will do it even if it means failure or death.

When you see God the way He really is and the way you really are you will see others the way they really are which is in need of the same relationship with God that you now have. You say you want them to have the relationship with God that you have? Then you will do everything in your power to make it happen even when you know that for most people it won’t, because notice what else He says to Isaiah.

“And he said, ‘Go, and say to this people:

“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’” Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste.” (Isaiah 6:9-11)

Now do you get the picture of what God is telling Isaiah to do? He is telling Him to go talk to people when they won’t listen. Go preach when they won’t respond. Go knock on doors even when they will be slammed in your face.

Why would Isaiah agree to take the job? Why would Isaiah agree to do what God told him to do even though he knew the message would fall on deaf ears and his ministry, at least from a human viewpoint would be a failure, because Isaiah finally understands that in our relationship with God we are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful. Faithfulness is our business. Success is God’s business.

That is why it is dangerous to gage the success of a pastor or a ministry by its size or by its growth. What matters in the end for every one of us is that we have a real relationship with a real God and we were faithful in that relationship to do whatever it was that God asked us to do.

What does all of this mean? If the real me is to be rightly related to the real God then because that God is holy I must be holy too, which is exactly what one of the twelve disciples wrote 800 years later.

“But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (I Peter 1:15-16)

Do you know what that means? When you get up close and personal, when you see God for who He is and you see God for who you are you will take your life and say, “Here I am. Send me.” You will take your family and say, “Here they are. Use them.” You will take your money and say, “Here it is. Take it and use it for Your glory and Your honor.”

This God is so holy He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die for the one thing that keeps us from being holy and being rightly related to the One who is holy and that is sin. He raised that Jesus from the dead to prove that through Him we can have a real relationship with the real God that will last for all eternity. Then we will see God more clearly than ever!