Isaiah 59:1-13 Look Closer
The people are asking “Where is God?” when their prayers and rituals don’t get the result they want. God says, “Look closer at your OWN behavior.” THEN you will see where the problem lies.
God just finished telling Judah that He wants relationship and not ritual. But He wants right relationships between men too. You can’t stand in the presence of the Lord on Sunday and then abuse your brother on Monday and expect God to be okay with that. Your relationship with Him has to make a difference in the rest of your life.
My bible helps talks about “social sins” that Judah is engaging in. Sins against one another. “For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness” (verse 3). Their relationships between one another are a MESS! God says they even use the courts to try and abuse one another. I don’t know about you, but that sounds VERY familiar to me.
All this, and they wonder why God is not answering their prayers. “What’s wrong with God? Doesn’t He see how badly we need Him? WHY isn’t He responding to my prayers? I said them exactly as He requires.” They refused to look for the REAL root of their unanswered prayers; their own lives.
God is NOT incapable of moving on behalf of His children. “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or His ear dull, that it cannot hear” (verse 1). His power is just the same as it always was. The power to speak into being the universe. The power to alter the course of rivers. The power to heal the sick and raise the dead. The POWER to save that which was lost. He hasn’t lost a step.
We have, just like Judah had when Isaiah spoke these words, lost a step. That ‘step’ is the one that remembers to remove through repentance our sins. Judah had a more complex way than we have when it comes to approaching God, but we ALL have the same first step in common. Recognize OUR sin! To admit, first to ourselves, that what we are doing is wrong and goes against what God says is acceptable. Then we have to tell God that we recognize that the problem lies with US; not Him.
THIS is where healing and restoration begins. The first step after repenting to God for our behavior is to repent to those we have wronged. Sometimes it takes quite a bit of time to repair that damaged person to person relationship. We humans don’t tend to forgive as quickly as God does. We insist on seeing a change in the person’s behavior before we can even begin building trust again.
I was just reminded of something. I was thinking about a garden hose. One that has something clogging up the middle of it. Try as hard as you can, you won’t get the debris out of it until you turn the water on. The movement (pressure) of the water shoves that blockage right out of the hose. Sometimes you have to turn it on higher because the clog is bigger or tighter. This is how it is with clearing out our ‘spiritual channel’. Once we turn on the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, He pushes against the clogs that are keeping His flow down to a trickle. He will keep working on that obstacle in our lives until He woks it free. If we ‘turn off the faucet’ before His work is done, we risk letting that obstruction get even bigger. We have to leave the Source running in order to get the clog out and KEEP it out. Unlike the faucet, we NEVER want to turn off the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But we do want to keep it in line with God’s word and use His gifts in order with our environment, situation, circumstances and ESPECIALLY His leading.
Father God, flush out all the toxins that I have in me in my relationships. Let me flow with Your love instead of my pettiness or bitterness. Flow through me to those around me who need Your blessing too. Keep me from polluting Your source too with my own agenda. Let me be love to those whom You love and a helping hand to those whom You are trying to reach.
I know I have not always been a pure source of Your love. I’m certain I’m not “pure” right now either. But let me be as close to the woman You called me to be as I can. And help me get closer to that mark every day.
