April 9, 2001
"Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them.
'Why have we fasted,' they say, 'and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?'
"Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high.
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--
when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
Isaiah 58:1-9
It is so important to read all of the above verses to grasp the heart of God... God doesn't want my actions he wants my heart because that's what he has given me. Nothing God has ever done from the beginning of time has ever been just action - it's all heart. God hasn't 'seemed' eager to have a relationship with us... he's poured himself out to make it happen. God is asking us to have for him the same heart he has displayed toward us!!! From the creation of the world, his plan for the Israelite's, everything he did in leading them out of captivity, everything done throughout their history; sending his son to die for us to make a relationship possible and then every single thing he's done in my life to lead me to him and to keep me faithful. The ways he has worked, the prayers he has answered in my day to day life are God pouring out his heart to me... how can I give him anything less than that in return?