I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 57-59.

    Today’s passage is loaded. I am not sure how much of it I am going to go over. However, I need to start with the opening message. Isaiah talks about why good people sometimes die young. His explanation is really quite simple. Good people die young because God is protecting them from an evil time to come. This does not mean that all good people die young. It also does not mean that all people who die young are good. Finally, it does not mean that those who do not die young will face an evil time to come. It may be that the evil time to come was specific to that good person.

    Now to move on to the portions of this that really moved me today (I need to work on different ways to say that a passage influenced my understanding of my faith). God punishes people for doing wrong in order to teach them to do right. If and when people repent of their sins and turn to Him God clears their path so that they may easily come to Him. If we humbly recognize our sin and failure, when we turn to God the obstacles that prevented us from reaching Him will vanish as if they had never been. No matter how great our sin has been, God is willing and able to heal us. He will welcome us back and give us peace. If we mourn our sins, if we genuinely regret them, God will comfort and forgive us.

    However, it is not enough to go through the motions of repentance and humility. Praying, fasting, and self-denial will do us no good if we continue to take advantage of those weaker than ourselves and fail to help those less fortunate. God wants us to share our food with the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, and help those in trouble. Then there is an important point made. God calls on us to stop pointing our fingers at others and talking about the sins of others. Our focus should be on becoming better people ourselves, on overcoming the sins we still struggle with rather than talking about the sins of “that person over there.” That does not mean that we do not confront those we love about their sins, their self-destructive behavior. However, it does mean that we need to be careful not to use others sins as a means of directing attention away from our own failings.