Isaiah 58 – Getting Rid Of

A number of years ago Norman Cousins wrote an editorial in Saturday Review in which he reported a conversation he had on a trip in India. He was talking
with a Hindu priest named Satis Prasad. The man said he wanted to come to our country to work as a missionary among the Americans. Cousins assumed that he meant that he wanted to convert Americans to the Hindu religion, but when asked, Satis Prasad said, “Oh no, I would like to convert them to the Christian religion. Christianity cannot survive in the abstract. It needs not membership, but believers. The people of your country may claim they believe in Christianity, but from what I read at this distance, Christianity is more a custom than anything else. I would ask that either you accept the teachings of Jesus in your everyday life and in your affairs as a nation, or stop invoking His name as sanction for everything you do. I want to help save Christianity for the Christian.”

Isaiah 58:9-12 – A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places

I almost deleted this thinking that i had already looked at these verses, but not the case, so it is another case where the Word or the person writing the Word repeats themselves as if i have not understood it the first time.

“If you get rid of unfair practices, i started preparing these post over two weeks ago and ever since reading these words i have been trying to think of how i may be guilty of unfair practices. i came up with an area that may apply. It’s in my spiritual dealings with people. It is an unfair practice for me to perceive things about people based on appearances. It is an unfair practice for me to perceive a persons spiritual walk based on what i think are the rights and wrongs of a person’s life. Example, if a person does not use the word in their conversation, i am likely to perceive that they don’t spend much time in the word. Why? my belief of garbage in garbage out. Now it may well be, but i need to focus on the garbage in my life and seeing to it that it is removed before perceiving about anyone else. It’s an unfair practice and “i need to get rid of it ” as the word says. And, just so there is no misunderstanding, i found several more places that i need to get rid of unfair practices in.

quit blaming victims, i can’t say that i never blame anyone for anything, but i work hard at taking responsibility for my own outcomes. Truth be told i have probably blamed God for more of my ills than all others together. For years, it was the thing i did and… it did not work well for me. i am taking note of the way this is worded, quit blaming victims. So the people i blame from time to time are actually the victims? Well… i guess they are victims of my blame.

quit gossiping about other people’s sins, Gossiping??? To talk idly, especially about the affairs of others, go about tatteling. So i have to translate this to say, quit talking idly about other people’s sins. Who am i to be talking about anyone elses sin? i get upset when people talk about me when i’ trying to do good and it’s mistaken for something else. There is an old saying, that loose lips sink ships. i don’t think it’s the person’s ship whom i’m gossiping about that’s going to sink. my loose lips, sink my ship, meaning i’m doing the most harm to myself.

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 have a smart phone so they say, and recently i have been trying to use the gps function. i’m sorry but it’s just not always that accurate and it ends up taking me longer to get where i’m going. Spiritually i often depend on someone, something else or circumstances to show me where to go and i end up lost. Isaiah 58 says that if i will do my part as i have been reading and understanding, that God will do His part. He will ALWAYS show me where to go. i have a favorite saying, “out of a revelation of God’s love for me i will have a correct response. I will go where He shows me to go and not find myself lost, or asking God to come and pick me up from somewhere i should not have been in the first place.  While it may feel like i’m lost sometimes, it’s more likely that God is just allowing me to rest.

“Action expresses priorities.” Mohandas Gandhi