ESOCS Devotional 5 February 2024 – Calculated Repentance
MEMORY VERSE: “Why have we fasted, and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?”Isaiah 58:3
TEXT: ISAIAH 58:1-5
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.
4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Read Other ESOCS Devotional here
We all make mistakes. But there are mistakes and then, there are mistakes. If a barber makes a mistake, he calls it a new hairstyle. If a driver makes a mistake, it’s probably an accident. But if a doctor makes a mistake – it could cost a life. A 17-year-old at Duke University Medical Center gets a long-awaited heart-lung transplant only to die after he received the organs from a donor with the wrong blood type. A heart catheterization is performed on the wrong person.
At the risk of oversimplification, the second half of Isaiah was written before the Babylonian Captivity, but the intended audience was the Jews in captivity in Babylon. Thus, those Jews who were in the Babylonian Captivity could go to the second part of Isaiah and find needed words of encouragement and comfort.
Obviously, because the people understood their captivity as the result of sin, they would seek to undo the consequences of those sins. Fasting has long been connected with repentance. “Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the LORD. They fasted that day until evening and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the LORD” (Judg. 20:26); “When they had assembled at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it out before the LORD. On that day they fasted and there they confessed, ‘We have sinned against the LORD’” (1 Sam. 7:6); “Why have we fasted, and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?”
God answers His people, and here’s His argument in a nutshell: You fast outwardly; you repent but you keep on doing those things you know are wrong. On the day the people fasted, they exploited all their workers; and they disregarded the poor and the downtrodden. Genuine, true repentance always involves a change of heart and a change of life. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to John to be baptized, John said, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:8). Notice what Paul said about baptism: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom. 6:4)- He doesn’t say, “You’ve been baptized, had your sins forgiven, and then you were able to go right back to those sins.”
- Genuine repentance is a prerequisite for God’s forgiveness and His relationship with us. Every true child of God is somebody who has truly repented.
- Father, I repent of my sin and for forgiveness and grace to stay far away from sin.
Further Reading: Micah 1:1-9; Matthew 12:38-end; 1 John 2:18-end
ESOCS Devotional 5 February 2024
