{This is a post I wrote in my old blog and I have added to it. I hope it blesses you today.}
“Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying, Speak unto all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?” {Zechariah 7:4-5}
I find this section of the Bible very interesting. What does He mean they fasted for themselves? We could fast for ourselves? Obviously. Otherwise the Lord wouldn’t be rebuking these people about it.
So we can fast for our own personal reasons.
The people came to Prophet Zechariah to ask counsel of him whether they should go back to fasting and weeping like they used to do. But the Lord seemed angry with them because the truth was that their fasting and weeping did nothing good. It did not give glory to God. They were fasting and weeping before Him and yet they weren’t, because there were no changes in their actions and in their lifestyles. In the following verses we see what the Lord wanted of them:
“And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.” {Zechariah 7:8-12}
It was obvious that their fasting and weeping weren’t for the Lord but for themselves. It is strange to be spending all that time and energy and not end up changed! I feel if we really come to the Lord with all of our heart and soul then He will deal with us and we should know what we’re supposed to do next. What is our weeping and fasting going to do for us if we don’t listen to the voice of the Lord? Isn’t the purpose of our taking the time to weep (or repent) and fast to know the will of God? If we want to know the will of God, isn’t our objective is to please Him, therefore obey Him?
But I believe people want the blessings of God without being responsible for doing what is right. The children of Israel have been taught to fast and weep before God and so they did, but they didn’t care enough to obey Him.
Or they wept and fasted before God to satisfy their own fleshly glorying of themselves, so that they could say, “Well, I fasted and prayed and wept before God, therefore I am special, and God will honor and respect and bless me.” It’s as if God now has this responsibility to bless them because they did what was supposed to be pleasing before Him.
But obviously God was not at all pleased.
A change of heart and repentance – that is what is going to please God. Doing good, executing true judgment, and showing mercy towards our brothers and our sisters and not imagining evil in our hearts against them is what is going to please the Lord.
The Lord said, “Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.” How many times do we Christians do this? Yet we fast and pray and weep before God. We can stop fasting and praying now because unless we do what God says to do, all of that energy is a waste of time. It is all in our head. There is no blessing coming our way.
If we continue to talk about our brother or our sister in the Lord and imagine evil in our hearts against them and neglect the poor people in our church, especially the widows and the fatherless and not show kindness to them, then we can forget about our piousness and sacrifices. They are all a waste of time and energy. God is not pleased with us.
Sometimes we can be so gung-ho about doing all these pious works that we think will be pleasing to God, and try to be perfect before Him, yet in reality we don’t listen to what He is trying to tell us. Even something as simple as, “Forgive your brother (or sister)” we can’t even do. It is so important to know the voice of the Lord and listen to His voice; otherwise we are just fooling ourselves. We are not pleasing the Lord if we don’t listen to Him.
I am learning in my walk with God that He is not requiring from us to be perfect before Him. He does not. What He desires is for us to know His voice and listen to what His Spirit is prompting us to do. He will not overwhelm us to follow all of His commandments all at once. He will give them to us as we mature. We don’t have to be at the same level of spirituality as the church deacon for example, but He definitely requires obedience from us, especially listening to His Holy Spirit and in His prompting in our heart and in our spirit what to do. Don’t follow Christ with your head and with the rules you come up with to be perfect with Him. Follow His voice. Follow the guidance of His Holy Spirit. He will not overwhelm you. He knows what you can take and what you can’t. He understands where you are in your understanding of Him at the moment. He is not into overwhelming us. He said in His word that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. {See Matthew 11:28}
Through Jesus Christ we can find our strength and our righteousness. We don’t need to memorize all the commandments in the Bible and see if we can follow all of them and be perfect before God. You know where that will bring you if you try to be perfect on your own? It will bring you to two things: self-righteousness and self-defeat. Trying to be perfect on your own by following all the rules and regulations of your church or of what you feel the Bible requires for you to do will cause you to feel better than your sister or brother who aren’t on par with your righteousness. Let’s say for example you don’t swear or curse and party like your brother or sister does. Before you know it, you will do one of these in your heart – sneering and condemning. You might not even realize it but that’s the effect of trying to work out your own righteousness without Christ.
The second thing that will happen to you is you will backslide. We might not think we’re backsliding when we still continue to go to church. But the spirit of discouragement will come to you – because you’re trying to have God’s righteousness your way and you’re failing at it. Let’s suppose instead of not having the weakness to swear and curse and party, you watch filthy movies instead – that is your weakness. One day your flesh is going to be tempted by the enemy and your desire will answer to his call. At the end of the night after your filthy movie, the enemy is going to condemn you because of your sin. That is Satan’s way. He will first tempt us to sin and then do a one-eighty on us and will point his finger at us because we listened to him. Because you are doing God’s righteousness your way and not relying on the strength of Christ, you’re going to go into despair and will find yourself flat out on your face discouraged and defeated. The next thing you know you’re listening to the enemy’s voice and believing him when your thoughts tell you, “What’s the point of even trying to be right? I might as well just sin and do what I want.”
Two dangerous roads the enemy will lead us to when we try to have our own righteousness and not listen to the voice of the Lord. We will either go to the one or to the other: self-righteousness or self-defeat.
I am learning that truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He will not require for us to do something beyond what we are able to do. He will come and help us and give us the strength to be like Him if we learn to come to Him all the time and talk to Him about our walk. He does not want us to do this on our own.
When we understand that without Christ we are nothing, that truly He is our righteousness, we will become more merciful towards others. We will have learned to call on Him and rely on Him when we fall. Instead of going into a defeat mode and despair we have learned to call on Him and ask for His grace and forgiveness and believe in His love for us. We have learned to rely on Him for help when our flesh is getting weaker and we feel the enemy tempting us. Instead of falling we learn to cry out to Jesus Christ for help. He comes again and again and forgives us and lifts us up. He doesn’t leave us or forsake us. He comes to us and comforts us, because we have learned to rely on Him for our strength and for His righteousness and not on our own.
When we do this, when we rely on Jesus Christ for everything we do and say in this life, and we are always calling on Him for our righteousness, we learn to be merciful to others. We learn to feel compassion for our brothers and sisters who are backsliding and doing the things they are struggling with in their walk with the Lord. Instead of scorn and self-righteousness in our hearts we feel a desire to help them to turn to the Lord and find His strength the way we do. We will ask the Lord to help them find Him and turn to Him for strength. We will no longer think evil of them but we will learn to love them and feel compassion towards them.
Oh, Lord God, let us hear you and incline our hearts to your word. Let us not just be a hearer of your word but also a doer. I pray, incline our hearts to your ways today and let us find ourselves doing good to your people, to one another, as you said to your apostles, “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.” Let us fast to truly spend time to hear your word and follow it and be changed. Let us go to you for our righteousness and not rely on our own. Let us come to you all the time Jesus and fall in love with you. Let us do what you desire Father and glorify your name through your precious Son, Jesus Christ, today I pray. Amen.
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” {Romans 12:2}
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” {John 15:7}
