A Mountaintop Experience

A series on the story of redemption
The story of Isaiah
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Isaiah 6:1-13; Matthew 17:1-13 

[Everybody has a story. Even God has one. His is a story about love and redemption and faithfulness. In this series we are going to take a closer look at God’s story through the lives of the people that He touched. How their story became His story of redemption. And how your story is also a part of it.]

  

Have you ever had a mountaintop experience where you felt closer to God? 

The summer before my junior year of high school, I went to church camp. It turned out to be a weeklong mountaintop experience. I came home fired up about my faith. I wanted to pray and tell others about it. But my excitement slowly evaporated. 

 

Ironically, it was the summer before my junior year of college when a friend shared with me about a personal relationship with Christ. It made a lot of sense, and resulted in a summer long mountaintop experience that literally changed the rest of my life.

 

Isaiah had a mountaintop experience that also changed his life. His was in the temple in the presence of the Lord. It was a scene like you’d find at a rock concert with billowing smoke, flashing lights and sounds that would vibrate in your chest. There were heavenly beings with six wings that called out:

 

^3b “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”    NIV

 

Realizing that he was in the presence of a holy God and that he was a sinful man, Isaiah called out:

 

⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”     NIV

 

Then one of the heavenly beings touched his lips with a live coal from the altar and declared, “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Here’s what followed.

 

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”                       NIV

 

Isaiah’s mountaintop experience was a calling that led to sixty years of prophetic ministry. He shared the same message that he heard in his vision of the Lord. It was a message to the people of Judah and Israel for them to repent; to turn back to the Lord.

 

There are other mountaintop experiences mentioned in the Bible that were literally on a mountain. Moses on Mount Horeb and Elijah on Mount Carmel. But none is more dramatic than when Peter, James and John followed Jesus to the mount of transfiguration.

 

⁵ While he (Peter) was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”   NIV

 

To be in the presence of your Heavenly Father and to hear his words of love and pride, would be life changing. Truthfully, it would be a mountaintop experience.

 

Copyright 2023 Joseph B Williams

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