Motive

Zechariah 7:4-7; NKJV

4 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, 

5 "Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me — for Me? 

6 When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?  

7 Should you not have obeyed the words which the LORD proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and the South and the Lowland were inhabited?'"

Jehovah's people had been going through the motions.  They had fasted,but they had fasted for the wrong reasons.  They did not fast for Jehovah, to draw closer to Him.  They fasted because they thought the act itself pacified Him.  He longed for them to draw near to Him.

Let us worship and serve Jehovah with the right motive:  "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8; NKJV).