“This people draw near with their mouth
and honour me with their lips, while their hearts
are far from me.”
Isaiah 29:13
The London underground system is a marvellous way of getting around the city. However, some of the station platforms are on a curve, which means that there is a gap between the edge of the platform and the side of the train. If you are in one of these stations, there is a looped recording that plays every time the train comes in: “Mind the gap. Mind the gap.” You can even get London underground t-shirts that say, “Mind the gap”.
For many Christians, there is a huge gap between the faith we profess and the life we experience. That’s where God’s people were when Isaiah wrote, about 700 years before the birth of Jesus.
Isaiah’s ministry lasted about fifty years (from around 740 to 690 BC). Right in the middle of that—in 722 BC—one of the greatest disasters in the history of God’s people happened. The northern kingdom of Samaria was overrun by the Assyrians. The ten tribes in the northern kingdom were all marched off and relocated to other parts of the Assyrian Empire.
These people professed faith. They were known as God’s people, but their experience of life had been quite desperate. So God sent Isaiah and gave him a message about Jesus, and how all would be theirs—and ours— through faith in Him.
Where do you see the largest gap between the faith that you are professing and the life that you are experiencing?
