Rend Your Heart

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.

Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast.

Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar.

Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

Joel 2:12-17

An outward demonstration of repentance can be a powerful process when it comes to our heart. But without a sincere inward response to God, we may simply be going through the motions, even in our communities of faith.

Whatever you need to tell the Lord today, just say it – from the heart.

God wants to hear your heart.

Our Daily Bread – October 18, 2016