Day 5 - Friday, October 16th
LIFE Journal
This Week's Memory Verse
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23
Devotional
If you have ever spent any time in Scripture, you know that the people God choose to be the ones through whom His son would enter the world, struggled with many of the same things we do: knowing God and yet completely rebelling against Him at times. They fought their tendency to worship false gods, to place on the altars of their hearts these gods that weren’t even real. We can scoff at the thought of bowing down to a figurine made of gold or silver, but how often do we place the things of this world above the One who created it?
This was the tension that is played out in the pages of the Old Testament: a rebellious, wayward people, striving to find their way back home. We’ve all been there or perhaps you are there right now. The danger in spiritual disciplines is that so often we can start to believe that if we just put that check in the box of having done them, we will find ourselves in God’s good graces and so our lives will go the way we intend.
But over and over again we see that God is never after repetitive acts in an effort to earn His love. The blood Christ shed on a cross was the final act needed to get us a seat in the presence of God. Even before Christ stepped onto the scene, God has been after one thing and one thing only: our hearts.
The prophet Isaiah saw the people of God doing much of the same things we do with our acts of piousness. They wanted to give God religion instead of relationship and for some of us, we come from backgrounds that emphasized a spiritual act over a right heart. True worship is the kind that has a heart oriented in a right direction, that is followed by actions that bring glory to God.
Read Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of what God had to say through the prophet Isaiah to His chosen people trying to somehow earn His favor with the discipline of fasting and yet totally ignoring the heart of the matter:
“Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—law-abiding, Godhonoring. They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’and love having me on their side. But they also complain,‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’
“Well, here’s why: The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?“This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage.Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
“If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones.You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.” Isaiah 58:1-12 (The Message)
We can’t approach fasting as a way to get on God’s good side or to cajole Him into doing what we want, especially when underneath our lives are riddled with sin and rebellion. We can’t quit social media in hopes of hearing something fresh from God when how we live has no regard for the things of God. A heart impassioned with justice, mercy, compassion, and a love for broken people in broken places has always been more precious in the sight of God than any single act of abstinence in His name.
Think On This Verse:
If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones.You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
Isaiah 58:10-12 The Message
Ask and Answer:
The Exchange desires to be used in our community. We want to become a people who help others exchange their old life for new life in Christ and live out their purpose. But, how we conduct ourselves in the community we are trying to reach matters. Whether you are a student, a business person, a service worker, or a stay at home parent, our city is looking at how we live. In what ways are you not conducting yourself in a manner worthy of the God you proclaim as yours? What sins do you need to get rid of it? Are you dishonest in your business dealings? Do you blame people who are less fortunate instead of offering to help them? Do you talk about people behind their backs? If you truly want to see God move through the next few days, confess to Him the ways in which your heart is much like the ones Isaiah spoke to.
This was the tension that is played out in the pages of the Old Testament: a rebellious, wayward people, striving to find their way back home. We’ve all been there or perhaps you are there right now. The danger in spiritual disciplines is that so often we can start to believe that if we just put that check in the box of having done them, we will find ourselves in God’s good graces and so our lives will go the way we intend.
But over and over again we see that God is never after repetitive acts in an effort to earn His love. The blood Christ shed on a cross was the final act needed to get us a seat in the presence of God. Even before Christ stepped onto the scene, God has been after one thing and one thing only: our hearts.
The prophet Isaiah saw the people of God doing much of the same things we do with our acts of piousness. They wanted to give God religion instead of relationship and for some of us, we come from backgrounds that emphasized a spiritual act over a right heart. True worship is the kind that has a heart oriented in a right direction, that is followed by actions that bring glory to God.
Read Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of what God had to say through the prophet Isaiah to His chosen people trying to somehow earn His favor with the discipline of fasting and yet totally ignoring the heart of the matter:
“Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—law-abiding, Godhonoring. They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’and love having me on their side. But they also complain,‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’
“Well, here’s why: The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?“This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage.Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
“If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones.You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.” Isaiah 58:1-12 (The Message)
We can’t approach fasting as a way to get on God’s good side or to cajole Him into doing what we want, especially when underneath our lives are riddled with sin and rebellion. We can’t quit social media in hopes of hearing something fresh from God when how we live has no regard for the things of God. A heart impassioned with justice, mercy, compassion, and a love for broken people in broken places has always been more precious in the sight of God than any single act of abstinence in His name.
Think On This Verse:
If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones.You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
Isaiah 58:10-12 The Message
Ask and Answer:
The Exchange desires to be used in our community. We want to become a people who help others exchange their old life for new life in Christ and live out their purpose. But, how we conduct ourselves in the community we are trying to reach matters. Whether you are a student, a business person, a service worker, or a stay at home parent, our city is looking at how we live. In what ways are you not conducting yourself in a manner worthy of the God you proclaim as yours? What sins do you need to get rid of it? Are you dishonest in your business dealings? Do you blame people who are less fortunate instead of offering to help them? Do you talk about people behind their backs? If you truly want to see God move through the next few days, confess to Him the ways in which your heart is much like the ones Isaiah spoke to.
Prayer
God, I want this time to be an act of worship to you, but I know you are far more concerned with my heart and how I pursue living a godly life than whether or not I skip some meals. Lord, show me the ways in which my heart is rebellious. Teach me how to live a life that is a reflection of the grace and mercy I’ve received from you. Amen.