“ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.””
Please hear me today. God is saying to you today, “Come into My presence. Be overwhelmed by the glory of My relentless love for you. And yes, My child, bring your sin out into the open before Me. Because I want you to know that…
True worship gives you the Assurance of Grace
I’ll never forget when I was studying in the seminary. I was having an awesome experience studying God’s word and serving in ministry. Some of the best worship experiences happened on campus every week. The best speakers came to the seminary chapel and watered our souls with the word. Then, out of no where, a sin I thought I had overcome, popped up in my life. I couldn’t understand how I, called to the pastoral ministry, experiencing such a spiritual feast every week should even stumble in this area. And like Isaiah, I felt in my heart like, “woe is me for I am a man of unclean lips!” Then God began to reveal to me that, sin gains power when its kept in the dark. What God needed for me to do was bring it into the light of His presence and confess it, repent or turn from it and then repeat the truth of the gospel to myself everyday until I fully believed it in my heart. I made this apart of my regular devotional experience. The more I focused my attention on the magnitude of His love and grace for me, the more I realized that Jesus has freely justified me by His grace. The more I realized that He has already declared me righteous, the more I was able to allow Him to make me righteous in my present experience. Victory came when I stopped working for victory and realized that I work from victory.
What Isaiah experienced in the presence of God was grace, not condemnation. The angel with the live coal from the alter, purging Isaiah of his sin, was a picture of the cross. God knew that what Isaiah needed was the present assurance of his salvation. This is why Paul could say of those that are in Christ in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore, now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…” The grace that has been freely given to us at the cross not only gives us pardon, but power through the Holy Spirit. Sanctification through the Holy Spirit happens in light of your ongoing position of being Justified or innocent before God until the day He takes you home to be with Him.
Everyday in your private devotional time with Jesus in His word, look for the theme of the cross, which runs like a thread from Genesis to Revelation. Then in your prayer time, confess and repent of any know sin. Then in light if what you have discovered about the cross in the bible that day, repeat the promise of the assurance of your salvation. Tell God what you discovered about the grace He offers you at the cross. And then believe it. Leave your time with God every morning with the complete assurance of your salvation in Jesus Christ. Ask Him for the baptism of the Holy Spirit to empower you that day to live for Him! Then trust Him to do what He promised.
"CJ" CLAYPOLE S. COUSINS JR., IS SIMPLY A MAN WHO IS IN LOVE WITH JESUS. HIS PASSION IS TO LIVE, PREACH AND TEACH THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. IN ADDITION TO PREACHING & TEACHING, CJ ALSO LOVES TO SING AND WRITE ABOUT JESUS.