Genesis

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This week was a very climactic and challenging part of Isaiah 6. Isaiah recieves his call, but it seems to be the exact opposite of what one would want.  You will make their ears dull, their eyes blind and their hearrts calloused. 

A couple of thoughts and challenges with this.  We rarely talk about the discipline, the judgement of God.  This is a text of God's judgement on the people of Israel.  This is not a text where God is choosing some to hell and some to be saved.  He is simply letting them fall under judgement, given over to the depravity of their own hearts that they were not letting go of.  If you were there this is the playdough analogy.  

So, here's where it get's personal.  Are our hearts hardened?  Are they beginning to callous?  Has something gotten in the way of our relationship with God?  Do we have dull hears and hard hearts?   We spent some time in the sevice to repent... to ask God to soften our hearts.

This felt like a hard week to communicate and a tough truth to really capture.  Where are you at with this?

ben 

In Isaiah 6:1-8, the most radical part of this whole text isn't necessarily that Isaiah see's God, or that Isaiah is cleansed, it's that Isaiah commits, signs the dotted line, before knowing what the Lord will have him do. It's intriguing that Isaiah eventually be given a task from God that is still the most difficult message to proclaim, a call to repentance. Isaiah shows us what's like to deny ourselves and take up our cross, only he does it 700 years before Christ became incarnate on earth. In our everyday walk, what does it mean to say, "Send me"? Perhaps Luke 6:27-31 helps.