Send Me

Hello and welcome to today's Word of Encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading, titled, Send Me, was written by Francis Neil G. Hallandaon. When Swedish missionary Eric Lund felt called by God to go to Spain to do mission work in the late 1890s, he immediately obeyed. He saw little success there, but persevered in his conviction of God's calling. One day, he met a Filipino man, Bralio Manican, and shared the Gospel with him.

Together, Lund and Manican translated the Bible into a local Philippine language, and later they started the first Baptist mission station in the Philippines. Many would turn to Jesus, all because Lund, like the prophet Isaiah, responded to God's call. In Isaiah 6-8, God asked for a willing person to go to Israel to declare his judgment for the present and hope for the future. Isaiah volunteered boldly, Here am I, send me.

He didn't think he was qualified, for he'd confessed earlier, I am a man of unclean lips. But he responded willingly because he'd witnessed God's holiness, recognized his own sinfulness, and received his cleansing. Is God calling you to do something for him?

Are you holding back? If so, remember all God has done through Jesus' death and resurrection. He's given us the Holy Spirit to help and guide us, and he'll prepare us to answer his call. And like Isaiah, may we respond, send me.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is taken from Isaiah 6, verses 1-8. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings, with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying, and they were calling to one another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke. 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. Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, See, this has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. 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. Now let's pray. Dear Jesus, thank you for calling and enabling us to serve you. Help us to see this as a privilege and to serve you willingly. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.