Although we often claim to know God and His ways, the way we go about things often prove us wrong. Many believe that God requires them to do all types of good deeds, celebrate certain holidays, fast during special times, go to church, etc., etc… It’s not that God does not want those things, but He is more concerned about our motives. Far too often we do them to try to get favor from God, when, if we’ve given our lives to Jesus, we’ve already gotten His favor! Then, just when we think we’re doing great with the whole “good deed thing,” we’re sinning like crazy with the way we oppress others, gossip, hate, slander… I think you get the message. What God wants is for us to listen to Him, and to do what He says with the right motives toward Him AND the right motives toward others. It’s not our fasting (giving up food or other things) that He wants… it’s for us to treat others with justice and mercy.
Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned… was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves?’… And the world of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other’… But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit… So the Lord Almighty was very angry. “‘When I called they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty.” Zechariah 7:4-13
In Christ,
PastorJimKilby @Kilbin8er
Jim@JamesKilby.com