AP

Isaiah 58:3   “Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it?  Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?”  Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers.These telling words of Isaiah give us all cause to look closely and carefully into our hearts to assess the real motives as to why we do what we do. When we come to realise that God really does exist, and that he is our Maker, it becomes clear to us that he is the One before whom we must all one day have to stand and give account!
In his Written Word he makes his will clear: “With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?  Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,  the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  He has shown you, O Man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:6-8).
Even with these simple instructions, it is all too easy to make the same mistake that God’s people, Israel, made, and for which the prophet Isaiah had to call them out.  They assumed that their [falsely] ‘humble’ outward observance of the Mosaic regulations – ‘fast’ days, animal sacrifices, etc – would earn them full acceptance in the presence of their thrice-holy God because he would be suitably impressed by their obedience.  God was expected to ‘notice’ just how ‘good’ they were and so reward them accordingly.
But what they failed to understand was that their ‘sacrifices’ and ‘fasting’ were not ‘good works’ to gain merit before God, but, rather, an expression of their dependence on God’s grace and mercy – receiving the things they did not deserve (grace), and not receiving the things they did deserve (mercy).  If they had had the right attitude in their ‘fasting’, they would not be so self-focussed in their approach to God, and they would not, at the same time, be doing whatever they pleased and they would not be so negligent in terms of the need for justice  in all their dealings with others!
As I read this, I have to ask myself, “Are my spiritual exercises each day done to impress God so that he will see them and take note of my obedience, or are they a genuine, humble response to his goodness, and therefore accompanied by genuine efforts to always ensure justice and care for others? 
– Bruce Christian