Known by God

Isaiah 59:3b-5 (ESV)

Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
    Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
    and oppress all your workers.
 Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
    and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
    will not make your voice to be heard on high.
 Is such the fast that I choose,
    a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
    and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
    and a day acceptable to the Lord?

God doesn't mince words with the Israelites in this passage. He tells them straight up exactly what He thinks: 

"You put on a good show. You put on the sackcloth of fasting and cover yourself with ashes, and put your head down as if to humble yourself, but in the midst of your fasting, your heart attitude shows: you mistreat your workers, you argue and engage in brawls. Do you think I only want the outward appearance of fasting? Do you forget I can see all your other actions? Do you forget I can see your heart attitude?" 

How would this conversation sound in modern-day vernacular? I'm not trying to put words into the mouth of God Almighty, but what is He saying to me?

"You put on a good show. You show up at church every time there's a service, and you write verses from my Word all over Facebook. Then you go to work and use crass language. You engage in questionable business practices. You point fingers and accuse others, and assume their motives, feeling yourself to be righteous more than they. Do you forget I can see your heart?  Do you think this is the service I want from you?

In David's instructions to Solomon, he doesn't even mention actions -- he begins with the heart.  I Chronicles 28:9 says, 

"And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought." 


God wants my heart, not my actions. He knows my actions will follow my heart. When I get things out of order and put on actions without a true heart, I become holier-than-thou. I use my good behavior to beat others over the head and make myself feel better. 

I think, especially lately, that Facebook is a prime example of this. Heart attitudes show up on Facebook, and especially during such a time of political upheaval and all-out hatred as we are experiencing now. I say this carefully but honestly:  some of my Christian friends spew hatred on Facebook, then turn around and speak God's truth and love at church. God sees both our church behavior and our Facebook rants. We can put on all the holiness we want to for church, but God sees our heart.

Would God say to me, "I saw your Facebook post and I heard you joking with your co-workers on Monday, right after you put your hands up in praise to me at church on Sunday.  Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord?"

Lord God, let my heart be yours so wholly, so completely that my actions naturally follow suit; that they become an irrepressible picture of Your love; that You find them pleasing in Your eyes because my heart is pure. Lord, make me unafraid to be known by You.

Isaiah 58: He First Loved Us

Lessons from the second reading of Isaiah chapters 58-60 (ESV quoted):

"Cry aloud, do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins." (58:1 ESV)

My people....God does not forget for one second, even in the midst of His displeasure, that these are HIS people. He doesn't disown them; He doesn't disassociate Himself from them. The possessive tone of that phrase is beautiful:  whatever I do, however far I wander, I am HIS and He won't forget me.

That's not to say there won't be consequences for my sin, and I don't want to minimize that -- Isaiah 58 is all about the sin of the Israelites and the consequences for their sin. We're getting to that, but for now, I want to stop and revel in the knowledge that I am HIS....always.

"Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God." (58:2 ESV)

The first time I read this, I almost thought the Israelites were pleasing to God in their behavior, but the phrase beginning with "as if" tells the tale. If God found them pleasing to Him, they would have been behaving righteously, in addition to seeking the judgment of God, and delighting to draw near to Him.

"Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it?" (58:3 ESV)

Now we're getting to the truth! This is the heart of the matter. The Israelites are saying, "We did _____ in your name, and then we even _____, just so you would think well of us." That might not sound so bad at first, but let's put it in terms of our marriage. What if I took the day off, cleaned the house, and did all the laundry, in hopes that my husband would take me out to eat and then take me shopping when he got home? When my husband got home, he thanked me for what I had done but didn't offer to take me out at all. So...I stomped my feet and cried, and said, "Why did I clean the house and you didn't reward me? Why did I do the laundry and you didn't take me shopping?" I didn't clean the house and do the laundry because I loved my husband and wanted to please him -- I did it because I wanted acknowledgment and reward.

Oops...my heart attitude is showing. So was Israel's, and God called them out for it. It's a fine line, this doing the right thing. It's not enough to do right for the sake of doing right. Our well-doing must come as a result of the overflow of a thankful and loving heart, a heart that can't help but do right because it is so thankful to God for His great love, His grace, His mercy, His sacrifice, and His innumerable daily blessings on our lives. God wants our adoration to be a direct response to His love. He loved us first, before we ever knew Him. He called us, chose us in Him, and brought us to Himself. We love in response, not in expectation. This was Israel's downfall.

Lord God, lover of my soul...let me love you more and more today because You first loved me. Let my love be true, not in expectation of anything I'll get from loving You. Let it be just for the beauty of who You are, just in gratitude for my very breath and life today. I owe all I am and have to You, and I am grateful.

No Longer Dry

I'm not quite sure how I want to use this blog...for now, I think it will just serve as a place to put my thoughts on my current Bible study.

I'm just coming off of a long spiritual dry period in my life. I want it to end. I want God's light to burn inside me again so brightly that others can see it again. I want my good works to be a response of gratitude instead of a resume or a job application applying for God's blessing on my life. I want to long for Him again in a way I haven't felt in a long time. I want to know Him and be unafraid to be known by Him.

I've been praying to "want to" for a long time. Today I want to again. Thank you, God.

It started two days again when I had to drive an hour and a half to a team meeting for work, and I listened to Christian radio all the way there and back. I heard Danny Gokey tell where he found his inspiration for the song "Rise." It was from Isaiah 60:1, and it sounded like a good verse for me to research and apply in my own life.

So today I read it. It seemed to stand alone, unrelated to anything around it, so I read ahead through the rest of the chapter. Still, I couldn't find context and application.

So I read the passage before it in Isaiah 59. The verse still felt isolated and unconnected.

Then I read chapter 58, and there it was:  a whole text of tangled ideas that left me more confused than enlightened, but that clearly applied to my initial text. My husband was in the same room reading his own devotional for the day, so I asked him to help me decipher the text, and he had good insights. Here are the questions and answers we discussed from this text:

Q:  In verses 1-2 I see that the people of Israel were seeking God daily, delighting to know His ways, asking for His righteous judgments, and delighting to draw near to Him. Why was he displeased with them? I couldn't figure it out.

A:  My husband's insight was good:  Verse 3 shines a light on the heart attitude of the people, which was more important to God than all the righteous activities and fasting. The people asked "Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?"  Telling words, aren't they? We DID this, we ACCOMPLISHED that... why aren't you impressed, God?

Q:  So what DID God want?

A:  He wanted righteous activity born from a pure heart, with no selfish motivation behind it. The activity was not the important part -- it was the heart attitude behind it. Verses 6-14 are full of these cause and effect kind of phrases:  "Is not ______ what I desire?"  "THEN shall ______ happen."  "IF you _______"  "THEN shall ______ happen."

God wants a pure heart, not a bunch of actions that spring from ulterior motives. He delights in the sweetness of the kindness we show to others, not because we want to be accepted by Him, but because we are so thankful we already ARE loved by Him, and we can't help but share.

This passage has a lot in it, and I'm planning to park here for a while to keep unpacking it, a little at a time.

God, apply these principless to my life. Let my activity come from my love for you, not my striving to be holy. Let my works be sweet, easy, natural, and irrepressible because I am so thankful to You for what you've done for me already.