Today you should read: Zechariah 7
Today we read Zechariah 7 – and Zechariah reminds us that our obedience is more important than our ritual. It’s what Samuel says in 1 Samuel 15:
But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:22
Zechariah gets right to it by confronting the sin of religious hypocrisy. He raises a question about fasting in verses 1-3, and then rebukes their hypocrisy in it in verses 4-7.
When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me; for Me? When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?
Zechariah reminds the people (and us) that God wants people who will listen and obey. This is the conduct He desires.
Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.
But once again… God’s people rebelled.
But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear. Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
So… God brings judgment on their disobedience.
Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the LORD of hosts. “But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.
Do you find yourself in the pages of this chapter? Do you worship ritual and religion, more than simple obedience to the Word of the Lord? Is your service for Him or for you? Are you listening to the Word of God and obeying it? Not just hearing but doing?
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22
What is the Word of the Lord to you today? Will you obey?
By: Tim Parsons — Lead Pastor
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