21 Days of Fasting & Prayer- Day 7

Right Fasting-Right Doing

^{Isaiah 58:6}

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

⁷    Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

I love how The Message translation puts it!

Your Prayers Won’t Get Off the Ground

¹“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!

²They’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, God-honoring.

They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’

and love having Me on their side.

³But 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.

⁴You 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.

⁵Do 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?

⁶“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, and cancel debts.

⁷What 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, and

being available to your own families.

⁸Do 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.

⁹Then when you pray, God will answer.

You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places

God is ready!  Are you?

“If you get rid of unfair practices,

quit blaming victims,

quit gossiping about other people’s sins,

¹⁰If you are generous with the hungry

and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, and your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.

¹¹I 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.

¹²You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, and 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.

¹³“If you watch your step on the Sabbath

and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage,

If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,

God’s holy day as a celebration,

If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’

making money, running here and there—

¹⁴Then you’ll be free to enjoy God!

Oh, I’ll make you ride high and soar above it all.

I’ll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob.”

Yes! God says so!

  Notice that right fasting is not about changing others!  It’s about me; it’s about you!  Right fasting is how I treat others. It is about me seeking their welfare, our treatment of others and about helping them out of their bondages! 

  Does God really notice?  He must, He is the One that told us what to do and how to do so!  “He that lends to the poor lends to God, the Lord shall repay!” 

 Right fasting turns our focus away from us and onto those things on the heart of God!