When worship forgets the neighbour

by Noel Due

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Render true judgements, show kindness and mercy to one another (Zechariah 7:9b).

Read Zechariah 7:4–10

The question that frames Zechariah 7 is a religiously sincere one: Should we continue fasting as we have done? The context is important: for decades, the people have observed ritual fasts commemorating Jerusalem’s destruction. They are not at home; they are in exile. God’s answer, however, bypasses the calendar and goes straight to the heart. The issue is not whether the fasts were kept, but for whom they were kept. ‘When you fasted … was it for me?’ the Lord asks. Here is a searching word of law: religious practice can be meticulously correct and still be curved inwardly.

God’s response is not to abolish fasting, worship or feasts. Instead, he exposes a deeper problem – ritual without repentance, devotion without love. True worship is never merely vertical. The God who hears our prayers also hears our cries. Thus, the command follows: justice, kindness, mercy, protection of the vulnerable – the widow, the orphan, the sojourner, the poor. These are not optional ethical add-ons, but the fruit God has always desired.

Zechariah does not teach that acts of mercy earn God’s favour. The people were already God’s covenant people. Yet faith that trusts God’s promises cannot be sealed off from love of neighbour. Where faith clings to God’s mercy, mercy flows outward. Where religion becomes self-referential – fasting for ourselves – the neighbour disappears. All we see is ourselves.

The warning embedded here is sobering. God reminds them that earlier generations heard these same words ‘by the Spirit through the former prophets’ and yet refused to listen. Hardened hearts did not lack information; they lacked trust. The result was exile – not because God delights in punishment, but because unrepentant self-righteousness cuts itself off from life.

For the church today, Zechariah speaks clearly. The call is not to abandon worship, but to let worship reshape the heart. True fasting, true prayer, true devotion are received first as gifts of grace – and then lived out as mercy toward others. Where God’s mercy is trusted, it is never hoarded.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us with an everlasting love. Even when we have cut ourselves off from you, you have still had your face set toward us. You keep coming to us to give and redeem. Let your love for us truly reshape our hearts into your image day by day. Amen.

Noel is a semi-retired Lutheran pastor, writer, teacher and professional supervisor. He is married to Kirsten, a medical doctor, and they have three children and nine grandchildren. They also have two cats.

Hidden faith, real treasure

by Noel Due

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Beware of practising your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them (Matthew 6:1a).

Read Matthew 6:1–6,16–21

Jesus’ warning cuts against a deeply religious instinct that is revealed across all time and cultures: the desire for visible righteousness. Almsgiving, prayer and fasting are not condemned here; they are assumed. What is exposed is the heart’s longing to be seen, measured and approved. This is the old Adam at work – using even good works as currency for self-justification.

Jesus names the danger plainly: righteousness practised to be seen already has its reward. Human praise may come, but nothing more is promised. This is law, not advice. It unmasks a false trust – confidence in recognition, reputation or religious performance. The hypocrite, Jesus says, does not fail because of weak discipline, but because of misplaced faith.

The alternative Jesus gives is striking: secrecy. Give in secret. Pray behind a closed door. Fast without display. This is not spiritual minimalism, nor a strategy for humility. It is a reorientation of faith. True righteousness lives coram Deo – before God alone. Justification happens in this hidden place, where God sees not our performance but our need, and meets it with mercy.

The Lord’s Prayer, placed at the heart of this section, reinforces this. We do not pray to inform God or impress others, but to receive: daily bread, forgiveness and deliverance. Prayer is not a work offered upward, but an open hand turned toward heaven.

Jesus then broadens the warning: treasures reveal trusts. What we store up, protect and display discloses where our heart rests. Earthly treasure is vulnerable – subject to decay and theft. Heavenly treasure is secure because it is given, not earned, and kept by God himself. Here again, the theology of the cross prevails: what is hidden with God is more real than what shines before others.

This passage does not abolish good works; it rescues them. Freed from the need to justify ourselves, we can give, pray and fast – not to be seen, but because we are already seen by the Father who knows our need and delights to give.

Dear Father, we thank you that you can see through all our false pretences and our self-righteousness. We thank you that you see through to the heart, from which all unclean things spring, and there you meet us with mercy. Grant that we may receive your mercy with thanksgiving and open arms this day. Amen.

Noel is a semi-retired Lutheran pastor, writer, teacher and professional supervisor. He is married to Kirsten, a medical doctor, and they have three children and nine grandchildren. They also have two cats.

Renewed while we fade

by Noel Due

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So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).

Read 2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1

Paul writes as one who knows fragility firsthand. His confidence is not theoretical optimism, but faith forged in suffering. The Christian life, as Paul describes it, is lived under a double truth: decay is real, and renewal is real – but they operate on different planes. We must not confuse them.

The outer self – our visible life, our strength, reputation, even our ministry – is wasting away. Paul does not soften this. Here, there is no promise of steady improvement or visible success. This is the theology of the cross speaking plainly: God’s work in us is often hidden beneath weakness, loss and contradiction. To deny this would be to lapse into a theology of glory, measuring God’s favour by external appearances.

Yet precisely here, Paul refuses despair. The inner self is being renewed – not by effort, progress, or spiritual technique, but day by day. This renewal comes through the word that is heard and believed. Earlier, Paul had said, ‘I believed, and so I spoke.’ Faith does not eliminate affliction; it speaks in the midst of it. Renewal comes from outside us, from the promise of Christ crucified and risen, applied anew even as everything visible deteriorates.

Paul presses further. What we see is temporary; what we do not see is eternal. Faith clings not to what can be measured, but to what has been promised. The present affliction, real and painful though it is, is not minimised but put into perspective by resurrection. Death is not denied; it is answered. Chapter five makes this concrete. Our bodies are tents – temporary dwellings – but God himself prepares a permanent house. This is not an escape from creation but its redemption. The Christian hope is not disembodied survival but resurrection, guaranteed by God, not secured by us.

Thus, Paul teaches the church how not to lose heart: not by denying weakness, but by locating life where God has promised it – in Christ, hidden now, revealed in glory. Until then, renewal continues quietly, faithfully, day by day.

Dear Father, this world is not yet heaven, and we cannot make it so. Forgive our feeble attempts to make heaven on earth by securing ourselves and our futures. Root deeply in us the hope of eternal life, seen and guaranteed in the resurrection of Jesus, who has raised us up with him so that where he is, we may be also. Amen.

Noel is a semi-retired Lutheran pastor, writer, teacher and professional supervisor. He is married to Kirsten, a medical doctor, and they have three children and nine grandchildren. They also have two cats.