Let us pray – Part 35

God was calling for sincere faith and devotion. The leaders were carefully making the traditional sacrifices and offerings at holy celebrations, but they were still unfaithful to God in their hearts. Sacrifices were to be an outward sign of their inward faith in God, but the outward signs became empty because no inward faith existed. Why, then, did they continue to offer sacrifices?

Like many people today, they had come to place more faith in the rituals of their religion than in the God they worshiped. Examine your own religious practices: do you spring from your faith in the living God? God does not take pleasure in our outward expressions if our inward faith is missing (see Deut10:12-16; 1Sam15:22,23; Ps 51:16-19; Hos6:6).

Isaiah 1:13, “New Moons” and “Sabbaths” refer to monthly offerings (Numbers 28:11-14) and weekly and special yearly Sabbaths on the Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 16:31; 23:34,39).

Although the people did not feel sorry for their sins, they continued to offer sacrifices for forgiveness. Gifts and sacrifices mean nothing to God when they come from someone with a corrupt heart. God wants us to love him, trust him and turn from our sin; after that, he will be pleased with our “sacrifices” of time, money or service.

How Do Our Relationship Affect Our Prayers?
“Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honour to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered,” (1Pet 3:7).

With the word, “Husbands,” Peter mentions three things husbands should be concerned about in their relationships with their wives.
1• Husbands should be considerate and understanding, living with their wives in love and in harmony with God’s Word (Eph5:25-33; Col3:19).
2• They should treat them with respect as equal heirs of God’s grace and salvation. Wives must be honoured, provided for and protected according to their needs. “Weaker” probably refers to the woman’s physical strength. A husband should praise and highly treasure his wife as she endeavours to love and help him according to God’s will (vv.1-6; see Eph5:23).

3• They must not abuse or treat their wives in any kind of improper way.
Peter indicates that a husband who fails to live with his wife in an understanding way and to give her honour as a fellow child of God will damage his relation with God by creating a barrier between his prayers and God (cf. Col 3:19).

When Peter calls women the “weaker” partners, he does not imply moral or intellectual inferiority, but recognising women’s physical limitations. Women in his day, if unprotected by men, were vulnerable to attack, abuse and financial disaster. Women’s lives may be easier today, but women are still vulnerable to criminal attack and family abuse.
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