Back to Calendar

Reflections: Daily Devotions in Disability Ministry

Make Clean

August 30, 2010

Isaiah 6:7b
Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. (NIV)

Yesterday, we talked about the amazing day for the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, when one day as he was in the big Temple, God showed up! There He was in a giant robe which filled the Temple. Angels were flying around telling of God’s greatness. The whole building shook, and there was smoke everywhere.

Isaiah said what I think I would have said, something like, “Uh-oh, I’ve had it now! Here’s the great perfect God, and here is little old me who does bad things so much and doesn’t always do or say what God wants. And now I’ve seen Him. I might be in real trouble. I might not make it out of the Temple alive!”

What Isaiah knew was that God can only be around goodness and perfectness. What would Isaiah do? Well, Isaiah didn’t know the answer, but God did. One of the angels flew over to Isaiah with a hot coal and touched it to Isaiah’s lips and said that Isaiah’s guilt was removed and atonement had been made for his sins. That meant Isaiah wouldn’t be judged guilty for his sins. They were forgiven.

God is always with us. How can we manage to be around Him? We also are sinful people. Like Isaiah, we might think, “Uh-oh, I’ve had it. I’m doomed!”

But you know what? God, who made Isaiah pure, also does the same to us. He doesn’t put a hot coal to our mouth (thank goodness), but He does something much better. He sent Jesus, His Son, to die for us. Jesus took our sin on Himself, and when He died on the cross, our sinful nature died with Him. If we believe in Him, He says to us, just like He said to Isaiah, that our guilt is gone and that our sins have been atoned for.

We are forgiven people, on our way to heaven. And He keeps on forgiving us when we sin because of his love. Every day, we can ask His forgiveness and get a clean new start.

What then? Tomorrow we’ll see what Isaiah did with his clean start, and what God wants us to do with ours.

Dear God, what a wonderful gift You have given to us in Jesus. You forgave our sin and took our guilt away when Jesus died on the cross for us. Thank You! Amen.

Rev. Phil Gruenbaum, Ministry Consultant – IL
http://bethesdalutherancommunities.org/resources/spiritualResources/pmc.asp

Back to Devotion Calendar