Zechariah 7:5 (CSB)
“Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these seventy years, did you really fast for me?”
A delegation from Bethel travels up to Jerusalem with one question. For seventy years the Jews had fasted in the fifth month to mourn the burning of their temple. Now the temple is rising again. So they ask whether they should keep mourning and fasting.
It is a reasonable question. God does not answer it. He asks one of His own.
Did you really fast for Me? Then a second question. When you eat and drink, don’t you eat and drink simply for yourselves? (Zechariah 7:6) Notice what He is doing. He will not discuss the practice until He has examined the heart underneath it.
Now put any act of worship where the word fast sits. Singing. Praying. Giving. Serving. It is possible to sing in order to hear your own voice. It is possible to pray selfishly and call it devotion. It is possible to serve so that people will pat you on the back. Their fasting looked sacrificial, and God said it had become as self centered as their eating and drinking. You can deny yourself food and still fill up your pride.
God is not impressed by worship on Sunday that never materializes into mercy on Monday. He only asks whether it was for Him.
One worshiper answered that question cleanly. Christ offered Himself to the Father with no divided motive and nothing held back. Every hymn you have sung for your own ear, He redeems. Every prayer you have prayed for yourself, He cleanses. Your worship is received not because it was pure but because His was.
So bring Him the question He asked them. Whose was it for?
Reflect
Pick the one act of worship you feel best about. Your giving, your attendance, your service, the thing you would name if someone asked whether you love God. Hold it up and ask His question of it honestly. Then bring what you find to Christ instead of defending it.