July 26, 2018 - Suggested Reading Isaiah 58 for July 29’s message on Matthew 5:13-16 in our summer worship service at 10am

“if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

Isaiah 58:10 (NIV) 

Do I want to be ‘religious’ or do I want to be righteous?

Isaiah has a beautiful way of confronting ‘religious’ people with the falseness of separating their ‘worship’ from their lives. 

What makes ‘religious’ people ‘religious’, as opposed to righteous, is that they separate their worship from their lives, as seen in this chapter where the issue is that the ‘religious’ are fasting and praying and yet at the same time exploiting, quarreling, and acting in a violent way. Fasting is one of the acts of righteousness that our Lord teaches on in the Sermon on the Mount, which means it is important to Him, and should be important to a Christian. These people have turned an act of righteousness that should bring a reward from God, into a religious practice that brings God’s condemnation. True fasting according to Isaiah is to spend yourself and your money helping those who are in need, including your own flesh and blood. This way of life, is worship and is righteousness, and will result in a person becoming a light in the darkness. 

One of the box gardens on Parkdale’s property is being used by a lady, who uses a number of box gardens around Belleville to grow food for the Salvation Army’s lunch program. 

The individual who told me this, said of this lady;
“She gives, and gives, and gives, its her way of life.”

Isaiah says of this lady;
“her light breaks forth like the dawn … and the glory of the LORD follows behind.”

May we desire to be righteous, and not fall into the trap of being 'religious'.