"Bread: Fasting without Famine"

Isaiah 58 (The Message)

"Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout! Tell my people what's wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins! They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me. To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people— law-abiding, God-honoring. They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?' and love having me on their side. But they also complain, 'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?' "Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?
"This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places

"If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins, 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'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.
"If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don't use my holy day for personal advantage, If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God's holy day as a celebration, If you honor it by refusing 'business as usual,' making money, running here and there—Then you'll be free to enjoy God! Oh, I'll make you ride high and soar above it all. I'll make you feast on the inheritance of your ancestor Jacob." Yes! God says so!"

Notes taken from sermon given by Jeff Kern...
*"v. 1 God is willing to bring hurt if that is what gets our attention."
*"v. 2 They give the appearance of being godly."
*"v. 3 They are asking "God where are you?"
*"Inconsistencies are astounding- what goes on in our life matters."
*"Temporary things never satisfy our eternal souls. BREAD that your soul needs is GRACE. God wants our hearts quickened and awakened."
*v. 6 & 7 Shows God's passion. Clothe the people and care for their needs. Give the need, share the truth.
*"Job description seen in Luke 4 says "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed" This is also restated in Isaiah 61."
*"To bring God glory and to make Him known."
*"When we give, we are making known we are His people. When we give, we are making known we are His people"
*"Psalm 67 says 'May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, Selah that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. Selah May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.' God blesses us to bless others."

"The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn will get angrier and angrier...The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good... Hand over your whole natural self... I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Personal Application...
Through studying these passages of Scripture, I felt the need to be more aware of those around me. I desire to be more aware of needs, rather than putting my head down, focused on what I am doing and what I need to get done. God is challenging me to look around, outside of my own comfortable area, look at the needs of those around us. God is challenging me to be bold, not scared. I can hind behing being scared. That gets me nowhere.

Psalm 7:17
"I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High."

Psalm 30:4
"Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name."

2 Corinthians 6:18
"I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

Revelation 1:5-6
"Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen."

John 14:12
"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."