Isaiah 1: 16-17 3/26/2019*

“Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”

The verse we like to quote out of the book of Isaiah is 1:18 “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” … but we sometimes miss these two verses that come right before that.

God is telling His children to stop sinning. To turn from their duplicity and do what is right.  Hypocrisy in your life is like a blemish on your nose…it is easy for others to see, but hard to see yourself…In this chapter, God tells us to get a mirror.  He wants change…and His Son died to give you the ability to change.

God doesn’t need your money, your rituals, or your sacrifices. In verse 11 He says that He has more than enough burnt offerings and has no pleasure in empty gifts.

God wants your heart.  Stop making excuses. God wants you to live differently. Obedience is better than sacrifice. If you are doing something that is separating you from God. Stop.

“Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right” is a hard statement, but it is not complicated and the only way to accomplish it is to get started. 

Decide to follow God today - and then take the first step. Whether its lust, anger, pride, worldliness…whatever…stop giving your sin authority it no longer has.

If you’re afraid you can’t give up that sin permanently, then stop for a day…or for an hour…or a minute.  Then commit to seek His strength minute by minute, and you will discover a freedom you have never known.

We are soldiers of the cross, and soldiers fight.  God said you would be victorious. He said if you resist the devil, he will flee from you (James 4:7). So, get in the battle…We are promised victory, but you cannot win a war that you refuse to fight…. Your fight for freedom begins today.

“When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer