reflections lately

If you haven't listened to this album yet, you should. It is beautiful and full of Gospel truth and God has used it to melt my heart.

I was listening to Brokenness Aside and Your Glory / Nothing But the Blood this week and it reminded me of Isaiah 6 and Tim Keller's sermon titled, "The Gospel and Your Self."

The prophet Isaiah has an encounter with God that leaves Him undeniably changed. Tim Keller talks about moving from seeing God as a concept to God as a reality in your life, as Isaiah did. 

He says:

What is the difference between concept and reality? It’s a matter of glory (weightiness). 

God as a concept is lighter than you. When you bring God as a concept into your life, you shape it. It fits in around your existing patterns. It doesn’t move you around. It doesn’t “quake” you.  

If you believe in God and it just hasn’t changed you very much, it’s just a concept.
A God concept can’t change your beliefs around. It just fits in with your existing beliefs. 

Basically, we don’t believe in God in such a way that He comes down and re-arranges our beliefs. 

When the real God comes into your life, when you get into the presence of the real God, things give way in your life to His glory. Things that you’ve always believed and you believe very deeply are changed by His word, because God has more glory than your beliefs. He can change things that you think. And also, instead of God fitting into your agenda, God becomes your new agenda. He radically changes our priorities.

Your agenda, my agenda, apart from God, is to have a very safe, tidy little life. And to watch your back and to be careful and to hedge your bets and to look out for number one. God says bravery, self-sacrifice, sacrifice your individual needs because I’m more real than your individual needs, I have glory. 

When God the reality comes into your life, all that stuff starts to change. Every single person who’s really met God is aware of a time when God went from being a concept to being a reality. Has that happened to you? Do you know when that was?
 

Isaiah 6 is such a beautiful passage that points to the Gospel in a powerful way. Seeing how God draws us near, humbles us, shows His glory to be so beautiful . . . and atones for our sin when we had no merit, no way to earn His favor.

My life is yours
My hope is in you only
My heart you hold
'Cause you made this sinner holy

Your glory is so beautiful
I fall onto my knees in awe
And the heartbeat of my life
Is to worship in your light
'Cause your glory is so beautiful

"Your Glory" - All Sons & Daughters