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." – Isaiah 6:6-7

Today's Scripture Reading (April 26, 2026): Isaiah 6

We are people who have sinned, whether we admit it or not. And when we come to the point where we recognize our sin, we will face a decision about what to do about it. The choice that stares us in the face is to argue that it's not our fault and we can't do anything about it, or to confess it. Which reaction is up to us.

The imagery in this passage is very strong. Can you imagine having a hot coal placed on your lips? Dave Browning wrote a song titled "Take Me In," and the chorus includes these lines.

            Take me into the Holy of Holies

            Take me in by the blood of the Lamb

            Take me into the Holy of Holies

            Take the coal, cleanse my lips, here I am 

When we come before this thrice-Holy God, whose glory fills our world and who reveals our sins for what they are, the most painless way to handle that sin is to say that it is not my fault. If fault has to be assigned, it is to someone or something else, not me. Sometimes, we even blame God, I mean, He made us this way, and he has the power to change us and our circumstances if he wants to. But he doesn't (Somehow the events of the Garden of Eden fall away at this point in our argument). 

Our only other option is to take personal responsibility for our sin, confess it, and allow God to come and cleanse it. To take coal and cleanse our lips. From experience, I know that if confession isn't painful, then we haven't really taken responsibility for our sin.

I had a conversation with a friend several years ago. Some issues arose and changed the course of his life. And now we were sitting across a table in a coffee shop, talking about it. I remember asking him which part of the experience he owned, which is just another way of asking, "How have you sinned?" He responded that he had sinned by allowing people to take advantage of him, by allowing other people's behavior to influence him. It was his fault for not cutting off these relationships earlier. 

And all of that might be true, but he still hadn't confessed sin. He had just restructured old arguments in a more personal way. Basically, he argued that he took personal responsibility for someone else's actions against him. It's still not my fault. It is still someone else who did it to me.

If confession isn't painful, then I don't think you have really confessed. It is so much easier not to take responsibility. But we still need the coal to touch our lips, regardless of how painful that might be.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Isaiah 7