What God Wants

After a wonderful anointing of the Holy Ghost in both services yesterday and after watching God deal with people and pull them to Him, here is a study to start your week. I challenge you to go get your Bible and turn to this chapter and read along with this thought. If you will and apply it to your life you will see a big difference in the days to come. But remember the seeds we sow come up in seasons. You may have to deal with some of yesterday’s seeds but you can start making a difference by planting the right ones from now on. Go get your Bible.

This study comes from the 58^th chapter of Isaiah. Turn there in your Bible and follow along.

The chapter starts with a full throated yell at the people of God.

In verse two God says that they seek Him every day. They come to Him in some sort of prayer and praise and delight or are bent towards the ordinances of God and ask that His ordinances bring them right things and prosperity.   The Message commentary says this about verse two. “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.”

Then, verse three starts with their complaint and then the Lord gives the reason He is addressing them in this chapter.

Their commitment was for their own wants and lust. They fasted and prayed with a “look at me” mentality. They prayed that they might heap their answered prayers up for their own benefit. 

In the New Testament James warns of this same action.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. James 4:3 NKJV

The writer Isaiah goes on to let them know they are angry and bitter. They were carrying grudges and having fits of rage. They boiled over often to such a place that they seemed to swing a mean fist. Verse six starts with what God wants to see in one’s life if we want our fasting and prayer to be effective. God list eight things He wants to see daily in their lives.

1 To break the chains of injustice, to become fair with all your dealings.

2 To get rid of exploitation or abuse in the workplace,

3 To free the oppressed or discouraged,

4 To cancel debts. This would be more than financial also people who have done you wrong.

God then starts verse seven with, “What I'm interested in seeing you do is:”

5 To start sharing your food with the hungry,

6 To inviting the homeless poor into your homes,     

7 To put clothes on the shivering ill-clad,

8 To become available to your own families.

God gave them these eight things to do daily and said if they would do this the Lord would follow it up with five blessings.

1 God would cause the lights will turn on,

2 Your lives will turn around at once, healing would come speedily.

3 Your righteousness (KJV same word as justice in verse 2 – right but also prosperity) will pave your way.

4 The God of glory will secure your passage. God will guard your back so you will not be taken by surprise.

5 Then when you pray, God will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'

The Amplified Bible puts verse 8 and 9 like this.

8 Then shall your light break forth like the morning, and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness (your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God) shall go before you [conducting you to peace and prosperity], and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. [Ex 14:19,20; Isa 52:12.]

9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am.

But God didn’t stop there, He takes it even farther. God ends verse nine with the starting of another list. God gives another five things to change in our lives.

1 If you get rid of unfair practices,

2 If you quit blaming victims, or stop pointing your finger with blame.

3 If you quit gossiping about other people's sins,

4 If you are generous with the hungry

5 If you start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,

Again the Lord follows up the list of, if you do these things, then He will causes some things to become an assumed thing in your life.  

1 Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, (Original meaning was to shoot forth like beams of light)

2 Your shadowed (misfortune) lives will be bathed in sunlight (doubled light).

3 God will always show you where to go.

4 God will give you a full life in the emptiest of places —

5 God will give you firm muscles, strong bones. (He will strengthen your body)

6 God will make you be like a well-watered garden,

7 God will make you like a gurgling spring that never runs dry. (Original text, fail means never lie or be a liar)

8 God will cause you to use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,

9 God will cause you to rebuild the foundations from out of your past. (Possibly past failures will be given a second chance.)

10 God will cause you to be known as those who can fix anything, (God is using you.)

11 God will cause you to restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, and make the community (your surroundings) livable again.  

(These verses were taken from the Message Commentary.)

You want to make a difference in your world?

Live a holy life: Be faithful to your spouse. Be the one at the office or on the job who refuses to cheat and lie. Be the neighbor who acts neighborly and not crabby. Be the employee who does the work and doesn’t complain or the employer who is not unkind. Pay your bills. Do your part in life and enjoy life. Don’t speak one message and live another. People are watching the way we act more than they are listening to what we say.

From the book, A Gentle Thunder by Max Lucado

God bless your day and may this chapter change the direction of your life.