ISAIAH 43:23-24
“Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.”
KEYWORD: God’s instructions are never meant to burden His children. They are given because He loves us and desires to preserve us.
It must always remain in your consciousness that God is not distant from His children. He is a relational God who desires fellowship and responds to the way we approach Him. If building a relationship with us was not important to Him, He would not have created us in His image and given us the capacity to know, love and worship Him.
Having created us to serve Him and honour Him with our lives, God has a desire for our words, actions and choices to reflect our relationship with Him. He does not desire to control us as a tyrant but has taken time to reveal how we can walk with Him and experience His purpose for our lives.
Through Scripture, we see clear instructions, principles and standards that God has established for His people. He reveals the patterns we are to follow in every season of life, and as we continually study His Word and listen to His voice, we are guided in the right direction.
However, when we know what God has instructed us to do and deliberately choose not to do it, we must ask ourselves if we are truly walking in alignment with Him. Do you remember that Moses spent forty days with the Lord receiving the commandments and instructions that would guide God’s people?
Yet when you look at our opening Scripture, you see God expressing His displeasure because His people were no longer walking according to His ways. You might wonder if the sacrifices they failed to offer were something God personally needed, but that would be the wrong understanding. God was not lacking anything from them. Instead, He was revealing that their neglect of His instructions showed a deeper problem in their relationship with Him.
God’s instructions are never meant to burden His children. They are given because He loves us and desires to preserve us. When He speaks and establishes His ways, there is always a reason behind it. Obedience keeps us aligned with His purpose, while disobedience opens the door to consequences we could have avoided.
Today, examine your walk with God. Are there instructions you have ignored or areas where you have chosen your own way above His? Return to Him with a willing heart and allow His Word to guide you completely. Shalom!
PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, forgive me for every time I have deliberately ignored Your instructions and chosen my own way. Help me to receive Your Word with reverence and obey Your counsel diligently. Let my life continually honour You in the name of Jesus.
FURTHER STUDY:
EXODUS 34:1-2
“And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.”
EXODUS 34:28
“And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
