Zechariah 7:4-6 (The Message)

God-of-the-Angel-Armies gave me this Message for them, for all the people and for the priests: “When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me? And when you held feasts, was that for me? Hardly. You’re interested in religion, I’m interested in people.

I have often heard (and probably often remarked) that the ‘worship wasn’t my style’ or ‘wasn’t to my taste’. Doesn’t it show what a shallow view we have of worship?

In 1 Corinthians Paul offered the advice for our Christian life that, “those who deal with the world [should live] as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.” (7:31 ESV)

Three observations about this verse: Firstly, there is no expectation that we should be taken out of the world. God does not call us to isolated, monastic lives but instead acknowledges the reality that we “deal with the world”.