January 2: Isaiah 6:1-13
Please use this as an aid to your daily prayers. Do not use it as a substitute for prayer, and do not let it become a distraction from prayer. It is provided as a guide to help prepare you for your prayer time.
The Author
The Upward View
Isaiah’s vision of God is glorious beyond description. The seraphim do not appear to be angels or cherubim, but are creatures guarding the throne and constantly worshipping the Lord in the beauty of His holiness. The word “seraphim” is related to a word meaning “to burn with fire.” Their behavior contrasts strongly with the pride of Uzziah for they covered their faces and feet in humility (2 Chronicles 26:16) —New King James Study Bible
The Hebrew language emphasized something by repeating it. Saying “holy” twice indicated God was most holy. Saying it three times was employing the strongest form of superlative in the Hebrew language. “Holy, holy, holy” meant God’s holiness was beyond human expression. Many have indicated that the threefold proclamation reveals hints of the Trinity. This cannot be proved, but is possible. Perhaps because of this profound encounter with the Holy God, Isaiah used the phrase “Holy One of Israel” twenty five times in his book compared to the six times it appears in the rest of the Old Testament (2 Kin. 19:22; Ps. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Jer. 50:29; 51:5). —Blackaby Study Bible Note on Isaiah 6:3
APPLICATION
Preface to Knowledge of the Holy, by A. W. Tozer
“The message of this book does not grow out of these times but it is appropriate to them. It is called forth by a condition which has existed in the Church for some years and is steadily growing worse. I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic….”
“The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.”
“With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, ”Be still, and know that I am God,” mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshipper in this middle period of the twentieth century.”
Why We Must Think Rightly about God, Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
“The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.”
“For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.”
To meditate further on the character of God, you should consider reading Isaiah 40.
Recommended reading: Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer (may be purchased on Amazon or pdf downloaded for free at https://christlifemin.org/assets/pdf/the_knowledge_of_the_holy_tozer.pdf
PRAYER
Holy God, our Father in heaven, I want to see You in Your glory and beauty. I want to glean a vision of Your awesome majesty.
Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8)
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”(Revelation 4:11)
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”(Revelation 5:9-10)
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”(Revelation 5:12-13)
Lord, how great is our dilemma! In Thy Presence silence best becomes us, but love inflames our hearts and constrains us to speak.
Were we to hold our peace the stones would cry out; yet if we speak, what shall we say? Teach us to know that we cannot know, for the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Let faith support us where reason fails, and we shall think because we believe, not in order that we may believe.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
—from God Incomprehensible, Knowledge of the Holy, by A.W. Tozer
An option is to pray the Psalms (111, 113, 117, 84, 8, 24, etc.)
REVDANS 