"Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!, Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." Isaiah 6:5 NAS

As we have been looking and imagining what it would have been like to see the vision that the prophet Isaiah had been given by the Lord we come to this place of surrender and worship before His throne. When we start to really look at the holiness of the Lord our God and how majestic and powerful He is, it really makes you sense how big He is and how small we are. When you start to open your heart to see Him in all His glory, well as much as we can handle in our finite minds, then you see how small, perishable and mortal we really are in comparison.

When you come to the place where you are surrendered to His will, completely surrendered unreservedly to Him, you may find yourself on your knees saying, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" Some of the great old theologians of our day were known to be on their knees in the presence of His holiness for hours upon hours. They were completely surrendered and compelled to be right at the feet of Jesus. That is exactly where we should want to be.

Now we can certainly compare our current day to this verse as far as the people of the world today. We definitely "...live among a people of unclean lips." We live among a people with unclean everything. Our society seems to thrive on sin as if it were the fuel of life. If you watch the news on a regular basis it will down right discourage you. All the news seems to be about the results of sin. We ought to come to the place where it is all life aside and give Him the proper time He deserves in our lives. We can open the good news bible and be encouraged.

If we do, we will see His holiness shine brightly in our lives. We may feel the "Woe is me...!" feeling, but we don't have to feel that way anymore. "Woe is me...!" is how I feel after I know I have blown it. "Woe is me...!", after failing to sin that has once again left me in that place of desolation, feeling far away from the Lord. Here is the good news though. Since Jesus died on that old rugged cross and has removed the power of sin and death from our lives, we who are in Christ will never hear the words, "Woe is you!" from God the Father.

You see the prophet Isaiah had seen the overwhelming presence of God's pure holiness in light of his own wretchedness and sin. He saw the power of God in light of his own frailty and weakness. He saw the perfection of God in light of His own imperfect failed life. He humbled Himself before the holiness of God in surrender with a heart that was usable for the Lord. Barnes' Notes says regarding "Woe is me...!", "That is, I am filled with overwhelming convictions of my own unworthiness, with alarm that I have seen Yahweh (1)."

When Isaiah had seen the Holy presence of the Lord He came to the end of himself. That is exactly what the Lord wants from us. He wants us to come to the end of ourselves. For Isaiah the next thing he says, "for I am ruined!" meant he was at the end of himself, he felt he was literally going to be ruined or destroyed. We have a hope in Christ that we can come boldly into His presence with full confidence and He welcomes us and delights in us (Heb 4:14-16).

When we come to Him surrendered with the heart of Isaiah then we are usable and ready to say just as Isaiah said in the following verses, "Here am I. Send me! (Isa 6:8 NAS)" You see God called Isaiah to Himself just as he was. Isaiah came to Him with unclean lips and he was fully willing to admit that he was unusable and covered in sin. The Seraphim used a hot coal from the 'altar of sacrifice' to touch his mouth and remove his sin which made him usable to the Father.

The coal or stone as it may have been was from the altar where atonement was made. Likewise today God calls us to Himself just as we are. We come to Him with all our sin that has ruined us and through the atonement made on the cross we are made whole and usable to the Father. Christ took the, "Woe is me, for I am ruined!" from us when He said, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me (Matt 27:46)?" In that moment He had the “Woe is me…!” upon Himself for the whole world.

Rejoice today and ask the Lord how He might use you. You have had Christ the cornerstone touch your heart and remove all your sins, past present and future. If you come to Him surrendered then you come to Him usable for His glory.

Touched by the Cornerstone,
Adam