Focus: What Do You See?

Text: Isa.6:1

"I saw also the Lord…"

Isaiah had a great vision of which he said, "I saw the Lord." It was a vision that changed his whole life and concept of existence and significance. He had a divine perspective on life and people. He saw from God's vantage point, and had his life permanently altered for good.

His vision was three-dimensional:

*The upward sight

He saw the Lord high and lifted up, and sitting on His throne of glory. What a vision! - a positively life-altering vision. That is where true vision comes from - the heavenly realm. It is a transcendental vision that radically and totally transforms a man's life.

*The inward sight

In that vision in which Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, he also saw himself. He says, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips…" (Isa.6:5). He saw himself as he was - a miserable man. He saw inwardly his moral wretchedness. 

Seeing God, as He is, is the means by which we are able to see ourselves as we are. In other words, it is in seeing God that we come to truly see ourselves.

Isaiah says, "For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts…" (Isa.6:5). The word 'for' connects you to the 'woe.' In other words, Isaiah pronounced a woe on himself because of the Lord whom he had seen. The vision of God's holiness reveals the sinfulness of man. On seeing the Lord, Peter declares, "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinner." It is not possible for a man to really see himself as he is without seeing the Lord in his dazzling holiness. His holiness blazes and dazzles. Amazingly too, His holiness convicts, converts and cleanses. Isaiah was instantly cleansed and commissioned.

*The outward sight

Isaiah saw the people of God in need of cleansing and change too. The Lord asked him, "Who shall I send, and who will go for us?" Isaiah, in that holy instant, said, "Lord, here I am, send me." He saw a needy world and made himself available for God to use. That is the outward vision.

Isaiah caught a vision of heaven, encountered a vision of himself, and received a divine commission to serve and advance the purpose of God on earth.

What are you seeing? God is still in the business of revealing Himself to His own people. Paul says, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2Cor.3:18). I pray you see the Lord for yourself. It changes everything and you never remain the same again. I pray you catch a fresh vision of the Lord your God. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter