All To the Glory of God

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!'" (Isa. 6:1-3)

In the very, very beginning before there was anything else created, there was God and HIs glory. That's right...just God eternally existing as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and the fullness of His glory. Jesus acknowledges this when He prays to the Father before His sacrificial death, saying, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (John 17:5).

The vision that Isaiah saw was just a small glimpse of this awesome power and glory that emanates from and surrounds His majestic throne, where all the host of heaven is continually bowing and worshipping the God of all glory. The seraphim speak these words to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

But what actually is the glory of God?

The glory (Heb. "kavod") is the "weight" of God, the sum total of all of His divine attributes and perfections and the manifestation of His holy presence and power. Even the angelic beings need to cover themselves because of how magnificent and majestic is His glory.

The only way for us to even begin to grasp or apprehend this glory is to see Jesus for who He is. For He is the Word that was made flesh, and "and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14).

God created all things for His glory and it is our highest calling to give Him the glory that is due His Name. David calls us to worship Him saying, "Give unto the LORD, O you mighty ones, Give unto the LORD glory and strength. Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness" (Psalm 29:1-2).

But since we have all fallen short of the glory of God, we can become so aware of our wretched state and how great is the divide between His holy presence and our sinfulness. Isaiah represents the entire human race when he is confronted with the glory of God as 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;
For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5)

In order for us to approach a holy God, we need Him to come to us and to change our condition. We see Three Key Phases unfolding in this chapter:

PHASE #1 - We must behold the beauty of God’s holiness and how He desires to fill all things.

PHASE #2 - We must admit our sinfulness condition and humble ourselves before Him.

PHASE #3 - We must receive God’s gracious gift and fully trust in His mercy and grace.

The live coal represents God's gracious sacrifice in Christ, who comes to meet us where we are at. It is a foreshadowing of Jesus coming to us and to heal, restore, cleanse, and forgive us. The glory of God came to His in the form of God's Son, who took on the fullness of mankind in order to put us back in a right standing with Him that we might join in the fullness of God's glory.

Let us forever turn to God and give Him glory realizing that He does not exist for us but rather WE EXIST FOR GOD!

Let us join the heavenly chorus and the declaration of Israel in Psalm 115:1...

"Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, But TO YOUR NAME GIVE GLORY, Because of Your mercy, Because of Your truth."