Started to read through the book of Isaiah this morning. Here in chapter one I found these words. They just seemed to shout out at me this morning.

12"When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
13Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations--
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
14Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
16Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow's cause.

What does God really want from us? Does he want us to sacrifice to him? Does he want us to pray without action? Just what does God want from us?

God was faced with a nation of people who claimed his name and yet basically did whatever they wanted. Sure, they offered sacrifices and kept all the right ceremony and feasts. But they lived for themselves alone. So God wanted NOTHING to do with them. He hid himself from them. He was so weary of what they did.

Hmm... sometimes makes me think it's like that today. All these people who claim the name of Christ, and yet don't live that way.

I have to admit...sometimes I fall into that category. Just living my day without giving a lot of thought to God. God wants more from me that empty words and selfish actions.

God wants us to Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes.

That is what God wants from us. Without being clean, everything we do is tainted. Without being clean our prayers and sacrifices and deeds are all tainted and God will hide himself from us.

God wants me to live a clean life. He wants me to not be tainted. He doesn't want to hide from me. He wants me to seek him, to find him, to know him.

So how do we get clean?
We get clean through Christ. He was the ultimate sacrifice. He made an end to animal sacrifices. He gave us the way through Christ. We simply have to say, Lord, I need you. Without you I am nothing. We need to trust him and the word that he will do through us by the Holy Spirit. When we see our need for Christ, and when we trust him to be our high priest, our King, our Saviour, then God will no longer hide himself from us.

When we trust Christ, when we turn to God for the answers, then doing the deeds of him become so much easier. Deeds such as

• ceasing to do evil,
• learning to do good;
• seeking justice,
• correcting oppression;
• bringing justice to the fatherless,
• pleading the widow's cause.

I am so thankful that I was brought up in a Christian home. It didn't prevent me from doing some really stupid things in my life. It didn't prevent me from , for a season, turning away from Christ. But it did give me the grounding to come back to him. I knew that I really did have a home, a real eternal home, to turn back to when I realized that what I was doing wasn't enough for me. AND knowing Christ, getting to know God better, does make the rest so much easier to do. To care for others, to see need and want to answer it.

Answer the call here that God makes through Isaiah. Wash yourself clean. Turn from your wicked ways. Seek God. Call out to him. Don't make God hide himself from you.