SCRIPTURE: Isaiah 58
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
For day after day they seek me out; they seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them. [Isaiah 58:2]
They seem religious enough, they appear to be pious people… and yet…
What God considers ‘good religion’, and what we often see as ‘good religion’, seem very different.
Fasting is not about impressing God, it is about genuinely caring for God and things that matter to God.
Sabbath is not about keeping the rules, it is about truly resting in God and helping others rest in Him too!

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. [Luke 18:10-14]
Two people, one who is outwardly religious, the other that is genuinely humble.
Jesus makes it clear what God is really looking for.

What good is our religion if it only keeps us self-centered, wrapped up in our own piety and purpose?
If religion for us is only a matter of going to church, keeping the rules, doing enough charity to make us feel good about ourselves, then we have missed the point.
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. [James 1:27]
How much is my ‘religion’ characterized by passion for God and compassion for others?
Are my good deeds just enough to make me feel good about myself, or are they the overflow of my love for God and appreciation for His goodness to me?
Do I genuinely hate the selfishness, the greed, the indifference to others that make this world such a hard place?
Am I genuinely sorry for living this way, and eager to live in a God-pleasing, people loving way?

God sees beyond my religion to what really lives in my heart.
What does He see?

PRAYER:
Lord, I may seem eager to know your ways to others – I am a minister afterall – but is that what You see? Please set me free from self-serving religion, and help me to be a humble loving follower of You!