Isaiah 58

Jesus said in Matthew 15:8 that, “the people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” Same is true of the people in Isaiah’s day. They were going through the motions to look religious. They were fasting and praying yet they were still not loving the people around them. The first issue here is that they were not extending the love to the people around them and the second issue was their religiosity.

1 John 4:7-8 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” See God has loved His people so much, He redeemed them out of Egypt into the promised land. He showed Mercy by not whipping them out. He showed Grace by giving them what they didn’t deserve. Yet, God’s people still couldn’t extend that same love, mercy and grace to other people.

Aren’t we the same way? We love it that Jesus paid for our sins, even though He didn’t have to. Even though we did nothing to deserve it, and still we say we can’t forgive people because of something they did to us. See, the bible says that if you don’t love people with the same love that God showed to us by sending His son to die on a cross for our sins, then we really have no understanding of what Christ has really done. If we really did understand what Christ did on the cross then we can’t help but love people in the same way. Jesus paid for our sins once for all and yet we still say, “I just can’t forgive Johnny, you don’t know what he did to me.” GET OVER IT, because Jesus doesn’t come around and say, “I just can’t forgive Billy, He has hurt me too much.”

The bible says we were born as enemies to God! We were born as terrorists to the holiness of God, but God still decided to send His son to ultimately pay for all our sins. That is why we read John saying that if anyone does not love, then they don’t know God – because when we realize that all our sins are paid for by Christ we can’t help but extend that self sacrificing love to those around us.

Where are you today? Have you contemplated what Christ has done for you on the Cross? Are you looking religious but still hating your neighbor? If so you need to open your bible and read it because John says that you have no idea who God is, if you say your a Christian but still hold grudges and hate your neighbor.