Isaiah 58
The chapter opens with a description of the actions of the people. They worship, study, pray, and fast. But they have a complaint, God is not answering their prayers. God responds in telling them why their prayers are not answered. They may be doing the right acts towards God but while fasting they quarrel, fight, hit each other and exploit their workers. They have the right actions towards God but their relationships with people are all wrong. How can you love God and not love the people of God? What God wants is for them to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help the oppressed. What God wants of them, and of us, is that our relationship with God transforms how we treat others.
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I would sometimes consider myself one of the people that Isaiah is describing. As a Christian there are certain things I am called to do-forgive for instance. I often pray that I will be able to forgive someone for a seemingly unforgivable thing they did, but I attach a disclaimer- "God I pray that I will be able to forgive like You forgive...I know I'm supposed to want this, Lord, but I don't...at least not right now, maybe in the future." After reading the passage, no wonder my prayer hasn't been answered. This is not how God intended Christians to treat one another.
ReplyDeleteThis passage along with the reading of The Hole in Our Gospel has made me look at my life in different ways. I was talking with a stranger about it the other day, and as I gave him the overview about how we are called to help the poor he said, "We're missing the humanitarian aspect of the Bible." Yes! I think that in addition to changing the way I think about treating the poor, oppressed, and needy, I need to alter how I see all of God's people and how I interact with them. It is often easy to be Godlike in our actions, overlooking how we are treating His people.