Today Father's Day Isaiah 58

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

If the e-mail text you receive is encrypted at all, just scroll down to the end of all of the text and click on Lena’s Journalin’ , which will take you directly to the web-page where you will be able to read the text quite clearly in it’s purposed form.

Isaiah 58
Your Prayers Won't Get Off the Ground
1-3 "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! They'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. But 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?'

3-5"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You 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. Do 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?

6-9"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, cancel debts. What 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, being available to your own families. Do 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. Then 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
9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I 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. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, 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.
13-14"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— Then 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!

~ Lena’s Journalin’
What reason is a trumpet sounded for? What is the use of a trumpet? It makes a distinct sound and is used as a signal for battle, for warfare. There is warfare in the earth. Between good and evil, light and darkness, right and wrong, flesh and spirit, body and soul, God and satan.
What “side” am I on? Did the trumpet call make it clear for me? Did I assemble to the call? If not, why not? Did I not hear it? If I do not know who’s “side” I’m on, then I’m on the dark side. I must know and deliberately decide to change sides, while there is still time.
Usually God’s family is named Israel which means “prince with God”, a prince is the son of a king. Jacob means “deceptive in nature”, “conniving” at best. Why would God call His people Jacob, rather than Israel? He’s describing their nature by character. Character is evidenced by action, and deed. Sons are not born, but are made, by the choice of the sons. A child could grow up and not be a son in the sense of Biblical culture. A son works with His father for His Father’s interests. Only the son can decide that. The father can try to train or make Him a son, lead him towards son-ship, but the character of a son is evidenced in the decision of the child.
Jesus was 30 years old and when He submitted Himself to the will of the Father by bowing before the law of God in the form of a man, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. He has truly placed His natural life in My guiding hands. He’s trusted Me enough to stand before men to fulfill all righteousness, even though He is God in spirit, He is standing before men as a flesh natured man, being baptized by one nowhere near His stature. He’s not “too good” to submit His own life to “imperfect men”.
He walks the walk by faith in the Father’s will.
It is invalidating to say one thing and be another in character. Our character must match up with our words. Even if we were not able to succeed in certain kingdom acts, yet our character was impeccable and honest, we’d be well on our way to pleasing God. He’s uninterested in the acts, and He’s very interested in the heart issues of man. Forget all of the acts, if there is no love, but if there’s love, then do the acts, unto God as Father. The acts alone do not denote son-ship. The character and heart does.
Are the acts given because of love, is love the motivation, or is obligation the motivation? If obligation is the motivation, may as well not do the acts, they are not a sweet smelling aroma before God.
Now, as I write this I hear black and white personalities protest and withdraw themselves from the effort. It is never too late to change as long as we are alive here on earth. Whenever we see we may have been wrong, thinking wrong, wrongly motivated, etc. it is the grace of God to shine a light on that imperfection and remove it. It could be likened to a cancer in the body, identify and remove it that the patient may live. So I say, “Live, if you’ve wronged God, live! If you’ve wronged man – live!” Take the “cancer” out and live.
So you weren’t “acting” in faith, you weren’t motivated by love, you felt obligated. Turn the obligation into an offering before God. Tell God you want help to change. He’s waiting so graciously to change your heart.
The Sabbath is God’s rest. God made the heavens and the earth and He rested on the seventh day, or the Sabbath day. The rest is His, the day is His, the times are His. If we spend them on us, we’ve missed the mark. If we hoard up treasures, do we trust Him? If we work for provision, rather than working to be a laborer in a specific harvest field, where a lot of the same people get to see our character in demonstration day in and day out, do we believe He will provide for what it is we truly need? In reality what we need is Him. Are we seeking and finding Him, or seeking wealth and prestige? Do we fear men and so won’t really tell them how important God is to us- enough to rearrange schedules to be in His house regularly, or do we fear God so much that we’d never be able to be silent about God before any man? Is God #1, or are we? Does His will matter at all to us, enough to see that we participate in the accomplishing of it, or is our own will #1? Who’s will do we live out, ours or God’s? If He gets 1st priority in life and I don’t just fit Him in, then He’s #1, if I fit Him into my life whenever it works for me, He’s # _______.....any other number but 1 is sin. I’m king, I decide, I rule, I have the last word.
Yet He is Lord of the Sabboath, or Lord of Hosts, and “hosts” again speaks of armies assembled and under command, hearkening to the voice of a commander, doing the will of another, corporately moving, advancing another’s plan, executing that plan, even to the death of self life. Soldiers do not live for themselves, they give their whole lives at work for the freedom of others. Someone tells them when to sleep and when to wake, when to take a break, when to exercise, where to live, where to go, what to wear. If they have another plan it has to be taken through the order of command, be approved, and them issued a release from duty temporarily. Anything other than that is unauthorized leave. Soldiers are recruited, drafted or volunteered, either way, they are under command. If not under command, then discharged, honorably or dishonorably. There are only two choices in any warfare, for or against, service or no service.
He is Lord of the Sabbath, we are His army. If we do not serve we’ve wasted life. All will give account for service. All are recruited, some volunteer. If there’s a no show, there will be an account. Now and later, we will all stand before God. Did we give our lives as he gave His, or did we spend them on ourselves for our own plans, dreams, and goals. It’s time to go ahead and give the account and make the change while we still have good time left to spend on Him.
Happy Father’s Day, Lord.

Daily Repetitive Verses:

Isaiah 58:12 You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, 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. THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language