“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,Because the Lord has anointed MeTo preach good tidings to the poor;He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,To proclaim liberty to the captives,And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To console those who mourn in Zion,To give them beauty for ashes,The oil of joy for mourning,The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;That they may be called trees of righteousness,The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”
Isaiah 61:2;3
The kingdom of Judah was failing; it was weak and its people were corrupt. It had once been a strong and righteous place, established, reinforced and blessed by God Himself. It had been a kingdom build by divine intervention for the children of God; that is: the twelve tribes which had committed themselves to Him. They followed God and He led them directly into blessing.
Then they began to falter in their commitment to God. They began to neglect their relationship with Him and consequently reject His commandments, choosing instead the lifestyle of the corrupt nations around them. They were immoral and cruel, stubborn and arrogant. Steadily their values changed and descended until they were unrecognizable to the people they once were.
But God still recognized them; He still claimed them as His own. He still accepted responsibility of them. Knowing that the people had blocked out His voice, God decided to try to reach them through another's: Isaiah.
- CALLED
God assists us and teaches because He loves us, but His love for us extends beyond self-improvement and well-being. He has also assigned purpose and influence to us and our lives, respectively. In order to receive that purpose, we have to approach God... and the presence of God is a wonderful but peculiar place to be.
For to be in the presence of God is to be juxtaposed perfection. Before God we are completely bared and prevented from being anything but utterly honest. In the presence of perfection, our imperfections are excruciatingly apparent. Such was the case for Isaiah, who when called to stand before God, cried out in a blaze of humility his own unworthiness:
“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
The experience is excruciatingly humbling to us, but we are not called to stand before God in shame. We are called to stand before God to have that shame removed. And that is exactly what God did for Isaiah. The grace of God permeated through Isaiah's humility and qualified him to be a prophet, an agent and messenger of God.
We stand before God somewhat less visually fantastically than Isaiah did, (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!”) but the experience is the same.
Just as God restored Isaiah, so is His grace willing to restore us. Daily (and ultimately lifetime) commitment to God qualifies us for the purpose He has called us to. Every day God provides lessons that strengthen us and equip us with the implements we need to be righteously proactive and patiently compassionate. We must be receptive to the voice of God because He will call to purpose, and then He will ask: "whom shall I send?"
- WHOM SHALL I SEND?
... Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'
Matthew 9:35-36
Think of that moment in a dramatic, action-packed war movie when the protagonist is elbow-deep in chaos. Suddenly everything is in slow motion and soundless as the protagonist surveys their surroundings and realizes precisely how inadequate their forces compared to what needs to be done. Jesus experienced that moment. He was tirelessly teaching, preaching and healing day after day after day, an agent of God working without any fellow-workers. He looked up and saw multitudes of people who needed and there were simply not enough people working to fill their needs.
Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'
Matthew 9:37-38
We naturally wonder ourselves "whom will God send?" We wonder when we read that scripture and we wonder in our own lives today. We witness injustice and disparity and we want to know who God will send to combat it? Well, returning to the book of Isaiah, God asked the same question: "Whom shall I send?" And the answer is: the person who elects to go.
Isaiah did: "Here am I! Send me." Elect to be the person sent forth by God. God will reveal His purpose to each individual who asks and their potential portion within it. Once received, one must then accept it. When one experiences what Jesus experienced, that there is need in the world that needs to be, but is not, filled, once must elect to be sent into the field.
- WALK WORTHY OF THE CALLING
Isaiah elected to go forth into Judah with a bold and ominous warning from God for them. But Isaiah was not sent to judge them or punish them. It was not even God's intention that Isaiah should threaten or frighten them. Isaiah was sent to inform them. Isaiah's job was the re-introduce principles of righteousness and to remind of the subsequent consequences of unrighteousness.
They had neglected and then forgotten the laws and commandments of God. "Laws and commandments" seem heavy and fearsome but ultimately it means that they forgot the importance of living righteously. The forgot how to be kind and wise and fair. They forgot the value of honesty and patience and mercy and loyalty.
So much of our purpose here is to embody the Word of God, to emulate Jesus as best as we can. After all, the influence of what one does contributes more to the fulfillment of their purpose than much of what one could say. Words of the apostle Paul reiterate this point:
I, therefore,...beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Ephesians 4:1-3
Isaiah was equipped with the word of God, and so must any sent one be. Because of his knowledge and familiarity with God's principles, he was readily able to discern between righteous and unrighteous behavior. He was able to speak truth and therefore contend with injustice, properly forewarn iniquitous behavior, and separate his own behavior from from it. We cannot be effective or anointed agents of God without those skills (but if we are with Him, we have them).
But in order for Isaiah's words to have any traction or impact or credibility at all he needed to walk worthy of the calling to which he was called. In other words, he needed to practice what he preached. He needed to live and thus exemplify the lifestyle and doctrine he brought to the people of Judah. To be a leader or speaker within or for the Kingdom of God is foremost to serve as a participant of it.
In order to walk worthy, one must learn to think worthy:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
The efficacy and fulfillment of our purpose is wholly dependent on our self-disciplined ability to remain steadfastly committed to the alignment of our body, mind, and soul with God's word and will. Our relationship with God and every lesson from Him retrains our brain (and subsequently our behavior) to produce righteousness from precisely before even the inception of any thought, word or action.
Paul continued the above verse with this:
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:9Whom will God send? The one who elects to go. To do what? To put into practice the Word of God.
God did not call Isaiah or even Jesus to speak caustically or judgmentally. The basis of everything God does is not to frighten but to soothe, not to punish but to correct, not to harm but to heal. Caustic, hateful, judgmental speech is frightening and serves only as a barrier between a person and their potential relationship with God (or restoration to him). Hypocritical speech does even worse damage, even if it is not outwardly caustic or judgmental in nature.
God sent them to be informed examples of the Word of God. The intention is not to lambaste (though in cases of extreme evil and injustice it cannot all times be avoided) but to teach. God did not send Isaiah to doom them but to rescue them. God did not send Isaiah to shame them but to re-introduce to them to opportunity of redemption. God did not send Isaiah to vex or scare or flaunt or condemn... He sent Isaiah to re-gather His children. He sent Isaiah to remind them of the lifestyle that would heal and bless them. He sent Isaiah to, essentially, put up road signs so that the people would stop getting lost or harmed on meandering, unsafe, paths.
When God asks whom? Answer: Here Am I. When God calls, answer: Send Me. Once sent forth, endeavor to embody the word of God and surely, nearly inadvertently, your purpose will be fulfilled.