Isaiah Goes Hard in the Paint!

When you come to appear before me,
   who has asked this of you,
   this trampling of my courts? 

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!

Wash and make yourselves clean.
   Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
   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. – Isaiah 1:12-17

Today’s Reading: Isaiah 1-2; Galatians 5

Good gracious that’s some withering heat! I said yesterday that Paul went hard in the paint but this is a whole different level. This is like footage of Shaq when he was in high school terrorizing the minions in his path.

Utterly unfair.

But look at the message. Isaiah spends a bunch of verses lambasting Israel for their wrongs and you’re thinking… okay… but what did they do? Then you get to this part.

Wash and make yourselves clean.
   Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
   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. – Isaiah 1:16-17

This is amazing to me. Through Isaiah’s revelation we see that God is the champion of the oppressed and downtrodden. God cares more about how we treat our fellow human beings than he does about the number of prayers we offer, the amount of times we repent, or how often and loudly we praise His name.

This rings true to me. I’ve always viewed Jesus’ great commandments as the cornerstone of my faith. We are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.

And really this is a circular notion. Given that we are all created in God’s image how can we truly say that we love God when we are willing to stand idly by as our brothers and sisters are oppressed?

It doesn’t work that way.

The prophet books are good for this. Through the gift of their timeless connections to God we can see how we need to improve ourselves. We are no better or worse than Israel was when these words were written; but we do have the benefit of these words to learn from.

If this first chapter of Isaiah is any indication… we are in for a rough and tumble ride!




(P.S. this is the instrumental... I just couldn't bring myself to put the actual song up... that's going entirely too far. Listen along with the second Shaq clip below Enjoy!)

Shaq going hard in the paint like Isaiah in his rookie year. smh...