Are we being heard?

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day weekend. I believe summer is here. It is hot!!

Well lets continue our study of Isaiah 58:2-14 and look at verse 4 today. Remeber our goal is to see if we are sharing the love of Christ that in us with others.

Isaiah 58:4

4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.

When we have fasted, which by the way is not a common practice among Christians today, it should have brought us into a deeper relationship with Christ. So if that did take place why would we be arguing and beating each other up??? That is definitely not doing what Jesus taught. He told us to turn to the other check. To be humble. To build others up. To avoid confrontations if at all possible. So we must ask ourselves this morning are we fighting and quarreling with others frequently? Are we physically taking out our anger on others? If this is happening something is wrong. We need to seek out the Lord and coreect theses things immediatly. If we are truly sharing the love of Christ these things should not be in our lives.

Verse four goes on to tell us one more very important thing. If we are fasting and still doing these things, fighting, arguing, hitting, ect, it tells us that our voice will not be heard on high. Wow! That is something to really chew on for a bit today. Now the way I interpet the Bible is as long as you are in Christ God hears your prayers. The only wat God does not hear your prayers except for salvation is if you are not in Christ. So these folks were still putting on a show as we talked about last week. They were even trying to fast and fool God. These people had no relationship with God and it was pretty obvious in their behavior. So lets bring it back to us today. How is our behavior. If it is not showing the love of Christ in a consistant manner we made need to look and see if we have a relationship with Christ. Remember we may be fooling others but we can't fool God. God only hears two kinds of prayers...those asking Jesus into their lives and those who have truly accepted Christ....all other prayers go no futher than the end of the tounge.

Wow this has given me something to think on for a bit!

God bless you my friends!

Tom