Christian Living

There is none like You, O Lord

by Thomas Kirkpatrick
03/01/19
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"In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple." (Isaiah 6:1)

So many of my life’s heroes have passed on into the future and left me empty in search of the love that we shared together. We all have had our common associations as parents, close relatives and those special friends that have inspired and lifted us along our way. Now they have left us and the memories we have of them are warmth to our historical past. We also long for the day when we shall all be reunited in the glorious Kingdom in the land beyond the realm we are now in. I sometimes wonder of them and question did they hold a place in my life that should have been reserved only for God? Did God call them home or take them out of my life so that I would put God in their place, which is rightfully His?

We often fail to realize that God brings people into our lives to comfort, inspire, counsel, and guide us to a fuller relationship with Him. Yet we so many times we replace God with the friendship of those He has sent to aid us in our journey. When we suffer the loss of a deeply loved one, one who represented to us everything that God is, do we falter, fail, and become discouraged? Do we find our self so dependent upon a person that when they are no longer with us we give up on everything in life? I have to admit there have been times in my life that one has left me here alone and I became disheartened.

King Uzziah was a good king and did what was right in the sight of the Lord. "He did right in the sight of the LORD according to all that his father Amaziah had done." (2 Chronicles 26:4) Isaiah was a prophet and a godly man who served the Lord faithfully. He knew King Uzziah and must have had a good relationship with him. But when his friend King Uzziah died Isaiah went to the Temple of the Lord and there in a vision he saw the Lord sitting on His throne. Here we see a godly man standing in the presence of the Lord. Isaiah was not a man consumed in his selfishness and self-pity by the loss of a friend but a man seeking the comfort of the Lord. I marvel at this passage of Scripture. Has anyone of us seen a vision of the Lord sitting upon His throne? I have not and I am not the only one.

It may be that our vision of God depends upon our character. The character that we have will determine if we can or cannot receive the truth when it is revealed to us. Our character must enable us to see the Lord. We are men and we live as men and we think like men and as men, we cannot fully comprehend God. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9) There must be something in our character that conforms to the likeness of God. I believe that unless we are born again we cannot have a true vision of God, as God is a Spirit.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 3:5-6) We can only see from our own base and in that perspective. What is needed is God’s surgical procedures of our external circumstances to bring about an internal purification. The flesh is dying and if the spirit does not have a rebirth from the Spirit of God it is already dead. A dead spirit cannot see the living Spirit of God.

By an act of faith, we need to have a rebirth of the spirit that we can be renewed in our minds that we can come into a likeness with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that works the process of our sanctification in our lives. It is our escape and freedom from the evils of this world and leads us to the abundant life in His Kingdom. "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

As Isaiah in a time of need our priority must be God first, God second, and God third till our life constantly faces to face with God and none other. Jesus said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37, 39) If we love the Lord as He is love, then we will develop the character that is of God. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23)

As we grow in the Lord each day we develop the same characteristics as He. When we have this same characteristic then we are able to comprehend the truth of who He is and will gain a true vision of the “Lord Sitting on a Throne.”

Thomas N Kirkpatrick

First Baptist Church of Durant, July 13, 2017