Daily Reading // Isaiah 58:1-14
READY // SILENCIO
Take a moment to quiet your mind and prepare your heart for your time with the Lord.
READ // LECTIO
Read the passage above up to three times aloud. Allow yourself to feel the words as they are read.
REFLECT // MEDITATIO
Now direct your focus on the words, phrases concepts or sentences that got your attention. What is God speaking to you today through His word?
Isaiah 58:9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I [am.]’ "If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
This chapter is all about a group of people wanting to have it both ways. They want to satisfy, by their own definition, the outward activities of godliness. They want to give an appearance of holiness and they are willing to add activities for appearances sake. Yet they are unwilling to remove practices that defy godliness - that contradict the image they are trying to project.
It’s not enough to add. We also have to be willing to subtract.
Sheep’s clothing doesn’t make a wolf a sheep. Religious activity doesn’t make a sinner a saint.
It brings us to the question: Who am I trying to fool? Is it myself? Is it others? Is it God?
Trying to fool myself may mean those religious things I do make me feel better about who I really am on the inside and the wicked things I do. Instead of removing those things I am unwilling to remove I try instead to satisfy my own conscience by doing a few religious things.
Trying to fool others uses religion as an outward veneer as a means to gain advantage over them. This is predatory. This is exactly the wolf in sheep’s clothing mentioned in Acts 20:29.
Trying to fool God is the most foolish act of all. God makes it clear in this chapter that He is not taken by their outward observances.
Outward action without inward substance is hollow. God sees it and He doesn’t like it.
RESPOND // ORATIO
Pray in response to what the Lord has spoken to you.
Father, As David prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”. Amen.
Tomorrow’s reading -> Isaiah 59:1-8