Welcome back, friends 🤍 Over the next few days, we’re going to continue sitting with this week’s message together through scripture, reflection, prayer, journaling, and practical application. My hope is that these devotionals help us slow down, stay rooted, and carry Sunday’s revelation into everyday life. Let’s dive in!

In this series When Kings and Kingdoms Fall, we’re looking at the destructive cycle of faithful and unfaithful Kings in Israel. This history, recorded for us in scripture, is a sobering reminder that even the best of human leaders fall short of God’s glorious ideal, and the worst of them can bring ruin on entire nations. This week, we’ll look at the wisest king in Israelite history, and we’ll see how wisdom without application is wasteful. As people of Jesus, we should live our lives according to the wisdom that comes from Heaven. Wisdom is available to us, we just need to follow its lead.

Link to this week’s sermon notes HERE!

Our eyes have been lifted to see the King above all, high and lifted up while every lesser throne shakes and when we truly see that kind of holiness, something else rises with it; we become aware of what still clings to us. Not only our sin, but our shame. Sundays message carried that same tension. Freedom was being declared, yet the enemy kept whispering about the past, inadequacy, and unworthiness. That is often what happens in God's presence. His light does not flatter us. It tells the truth, and then it invites us closer.

In Isaiah 6, after Isaiah sees the Lord, he does not congratulate himself for being spiritual. He cries out that he is undone and unclean. The vision of God exposes him. Yet the story does not end in exposure.

A coal from the altar is brought to his lips, and grace is applied exactly where guilt was felt most deeply. The Lord does not deny Isaiah's uncleanness, but neither does He leave him in it. The holy God makes the unclean prophet clean. That is the wonder of grace. Shame is uncovered, not to destroy, but to heal.

Shame says, Look at what you have been, what you have done, what still feels broken.

Grace says, Yes, the wound is real, but Christ has touched what sin stained.

Because of Jesus, conviction does not end in condemnation. The cross means your shame is not merely ignored. It is dealt with. So when old memories, present struggles, or feelings of abandonment rise up, you do not have to pretend they are not there. You can bring them into the presence of the One who cleanses. The enemy wants exposure without mercy. God gives exposure with mercy.

So receive cleansing today. Do not just admire the idea of forgiveness from a distance. Name before the Lord the very place where shame still speaks. Then answer it with the gospel. In Christ, I am forgiven. In Christ, I am clean. In Christ, I am not going back. If needed, open your hands in prayer as a physical act of receiving what Jesus has already purchased.

What shame are you still carrying that the Lord is ready for you to release today?

Heavenly Father, You are holy, pure, and full of mercy. You do not turn away from my uncleanness, but in Your grace You draw near to make me clean. I confess that I often listen to shame more than I listen to Your Word. I hide, hesitate, and sometimes believe I am too stained, too weak, or too far gone. Thank You for Jesus, who bore my sin and my shame at the cross. Thank You that Your grace does not excuse my sin, but truly cleanses me and welcomes me near. Holy Spirit, help me receive today what Christ has already won for me. Teach me to bring my shame into Your light, to believe Your forgiveness, and to walk as one who has been made clean. Amen.