Expect The ExtraordinarySample

Expect justice

How would you feel if I told you that God hates Christmas? Or that he is annoyed by Advent? What if I told you that prayer meetings bore him and communion frustrates him? 

Well, that is what God seems to say in one of the Bible passages that scares me most: 

Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood!
(Isaiah 1:13–15) 

Is God really asking His people to close down their worship services? Is He really saying that prayer is pointless? 

It is not that God is against offerings: he commanded them. It is not that God has no interest in prayer: He started the conversation. It is not that God does not enjoy celebrations: He invented them. 

But none of these things is at the heart of worship. God does not make it complicated. In fact, in the following two verses, He clearly summarises genuine worship in six short headlines: 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. 

This is the kind of worship that God wants from his people. God would rather we shut down our services than carry on with them while neglecting these six headlines. I would particularly love the church to rediscover this kind of worship by addressing headline number 5, "Take up the cause of the fatherless." We live in a broken world, where there are millions of orphans. Some of these children are in our own communities. My prayer is that Christians and churches continue to discover the depth of true worship that comes when we obey God’s call to defend their cause.

Krish Kandiah, founding director of Home For Good