Day 9 of Lent: Seeing God's Heart of Abundance Over Scarcity:

The Fasting that Pleases God Is Fasting For Justice

Isaiah 58: 6-12

Then your light shall break forth like the morning,

Your healing shall spring forth speedily,

And your righteousness shall go before you;

The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you take away the yoke from your midst,

The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

 If you extend your soul to the hungry

And satisfy the afflicted soul,

Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,

And your darkness shall be as the noonday.

The Lord will guide you continually,

And satisfy your soul in drought,

And strengthen your bones;

You shall be like a watered garden,

And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

Those from among you

Shall build the old waste places;

You shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach,

The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.

Here Isaiah describes what a just people and country would look like IF they fasted from the right things. 

He uses words like ABUNDANCE, guidance, renewed strength, watered gardens, repairers and restorers...lifting up the foundations of many GENERATIONS!!!

But it all depends on fasting from  unkindness, greed, and grumbling - all predicated upon a scarcity mindset... 

 and choosing God's justice,  grounded in his ABUNDANT generosity upon ALL people and things that He created.

Fast forward to the NT:  We find Jesus is again accused of eating with the wrong people at the house of another wrong person, Levi, the tax collector.  

Tax collectors were considered complicit with the Roman oppression upon the Israelites and Jesus was therefore cooperating with evil in the eyes of the Pharisees.  

Jesus reminds all the earth of what God's heart for justice looks like:

 He has come to transform people and all the earth, not to exclude people, define them according to our own prejudices or experiences, or destroy the beautiful resources of the Earth that He has given us to share.

"He has come for the ones who appear to be losers, and not to create a country club for the supposed winners."

In his first public sermon, after fasting and being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus took the words of the prophet Isaiah, and applied them to himself.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18-20, Isaiah 61:1-2)

This is our mandate too. As we fast, we find ourselves being humbled. We discover more time to pray and seek God’s face. We recognize and repent of our unconfessed sin. 

And we focus our attention not on ourselves but upon the needs of others. 

As we align our hearts with God’s heart of abundance, which always tilts towards justice, we will advocate for those suffering injustice, we will share God’s blessings and provision with the hungry, the poor, the marginalised, with widows and orphans and with refugees. 

Next week, we invite you into the Spiritual Discipline of Service- to partner with God's heart of Justice- to help raise up the foundations of the next generations, to be called Repairers and Restorers of our community.  

Here is one such opportunity: to advocate on behalf of those still subject to human slavery/trafficking in 2018!  Www.freedomprojecttour.com

Jennie Allen and Christy Nockles are partnering with International Justice Mission to show us how we can help others be set free!

Join us on Thursday March 1 in Pacific Palisades for a night with friends to worship and discover How to Live Free, BE Free and Set Others Free!  Hope to see you there!

Prayer:  Blessed Trinity,  fasting this week has made me ever more aware of my weariness....a creeping wheezing weariness which leaves me feeling like I’m pinned to the ground by an opponent who NEVER deserves to win...17 more schoolchildren massacred....17 beloved sons and daughters, treasured brothers and sisters, grandchildren, schoolmates, budding students of life ...my heart is straining under the cumulative weight of such grief...and so
We turn to you, Blessed Trinity, our single source of newness and restoration. In your infinite mercy and grace, receive us and all our weary hearts. Make us, altogether, new.
Hear our prayers for peace and restoration.
     “Form us in freedom and wholeness and gentleness.
          Reform our deformed lives toward
          obedience which is our only freedom,
          praise which is our only poetry,
          and love which is our only option. “-Walter Brueggemann
Our weariness matches our need, so we cry out to you. Amen.🙏🏻

From Lyn Woodruff, posted in the River Prayer Reflections Texting Group. If you'd like to join, write to info@riversouthbay.org or post a comment.