Religion and Spirituality

Isaiah 58 - Tell my people of their sins.... And they will be incredulous

They act so pious - they SEEM delighted to learn about me - ACT like a righteous nation - pretending they want to be near me.

We have fasted...why aren't you impressed.  We've been hard on ourselves and you don't even notice. 

You fast and do all the religious stuff but then go about your every day life doing all kinds of things that are wrong.  This is what religion does: Do all the right religious things trying to get God to notice and come through for us.  Then go on about our day and disregard God in how we treat people, how we spend money etc.  

God warns them and us not to imagine we can do all our spiritual practices separate from our every day lives.  Don't imagine that it's all well and good to go to church, small group, fast, pray etc.  Get up from doing these activities and just go do what we want now that we've done all our religious things.

And don't turn dealing with the poor and oppressed as another religious duty.  People do this now and miss the whole point Isaiah is making. They go out and do their justice and compassion ministry and think "O good, I've done my duty.  Now I can do what I want" with little or no thought to living a God honoring, God glorifying kind of life.