Saturday After Ash Wednesday
“9 If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
13 If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests or pursuing your own affairs;
14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” Isaiah 58:9-14.
Here is a kinder and gentler continuation of Isaiah’s remarks about fasting.
Take this into your heart and see in these words a description of how to live the Christian life. Offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted and you will live as Christ wishes you to live. The Lord will guide you in living this Christian life. He will guide you continually, especially when you are tempted to take a vacation from the Lord.
Consider what Jesus says: “27 After this Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax-collection station, and He said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 28 And he got up, left everything, and followed Him.
29 Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. 30 The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ 31 Jesus answered them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance’” Luke 5:27-31.
Jesus eats with this tax-collector because he knows what it means to live a holy life.
Take time to absorb this into your heart, and desire to live a holy life as defined by Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
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