Consortium Agreement?

Then you will call out, and the Lord will respond;

you will cry out, and he will reply, ‘Here I am.’

You must remove the burdensome yoke from among you

and stop pointing fingers and speaking sinfully. (Isaiah 58:9, NET Bible)

Sunday’s sermon was the third in the series “Can My Prayer and Fasting Really Work?”, a series we have been focused on during this forty-day period of prayer and fasting being undertaken by our local church (January 1 through February 9). We have learned that our time of praying and fasting is not merely a season of petitioning God, but is a season of petitioning in tandem with obedience to God.

Pastor Sam shared with us an important point concerning prayer and fasting for the Christian: our prayer and fasting must be “accompanied by essential features that God looks for among those who identify themselves as His people.” The Scripture reveals to us these essential features. At Bronx Bethany Church of the Nazarene, we have been taking time to reflect on the essentials as recorded in Isaiah chapter 58.

In verse 9 of the chapter, we note that God warns us against finger-pointing and malicious talk. Our pastor referred to this sort of behavior as a diabolic consortium. It is the sort of behavior that moves Christians into an alliance with the devil himself, whose way of existence is to accuse and find fault with people.

The challenge with abandoning accusation and malice is that, for some in our community, it is culturally appropriate to find fault and express displeasure. The knee-jerk response is to, as our pastor said, “wake up in the morning and find something to be critical about.” However, we are encouraged by Scripture to change our ways, abandon our habit and/or cultural heritage of pointing out others’ faults, and instead seek God’s help in redeeming us from our own faults.

Do we long to be expressions of God’s character in the earth? Then let us resign from membership in the diabolic consortium.

Trade blaming for blessing.