Making offerings that mean something!

Albert Bogle November 04, 2025 1 0

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Isaiah 1: 10-18 (NIV)

10 Hear the word of the Lord,
    you rulers of Sodom;
listen to the instruction of our God,
    you people of Gomorrah!
11 “The multitude of your sacrifices—
    what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
    of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
    in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me,
    who has asked this of you,
    this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
    Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
    I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
14 Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
    I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
    I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
    I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
    stop doing wrong.
17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.

18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,”
    says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
    they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
    they shall be like wool.

Here is a challenge to those of us who attend church regularly to worship. Is our praise empty, just window dressing for a window shopping worship display? Or are we creating real places for people to meet and draw closer to the living God’s heart; a heart that breaks for poor and dispossessed people.

I have been privileged to visit India on a number of occasions; I saw poverty in the raw. I also met with and experienced worship that focused on serving the poor, the widows, and the orphans. I met church leaders who had nothing, of certainly monetary value in the eyes of this world, but who had eyes that could see and interpret the things of the Kingdom of God. Leaders who had treasure in abundance where no rust can decay.

On one such visit I was deeply moved when twenty or thirty widows who had lost their husbands and their livelihoods in the 2005 Tsunami stood up and sang a song, a beautiful song that was written by Eliza Bonnar one of our congregation in Bo’ness. At that moment the song became the catalyst, that brought together people who had experience lost and disappointment, yet people who lived in two very different cultures, but who knew art it was to be broken-hearted.

Little did Eliza know that when she wrote her song for our church praise album she was identifying with thousands of people left homeless and broken hearted. Meaningful worship is often encountered because the worshipper has been given a meaningful song to sing because it is one that touches their heart and their experience of life. Eliza had done just that when she wrote Lord of the Brokenhearted. 

Let’s use the lyrics of this song as our prayer today:

“Lord of the brokenhearted Lord over all
We are here waiting to hear your call
Though we are brokenhearted and though we may fall
We must be willing to Ready and listening
Trusting You lord Over all

Lord of the disappointed the weary and small
Let us be patient to hear your call
When we are lonely and full of despair
You reign supremely
Give your love freely
Lord God You’re ruler of all

For only you can restore in us hope
For only you can revive us again
Only you can answer the prayers of our hearts
So Lord we cry out to you”