“And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?” Zechariah 7:6 NLT
It can be so easy to lose sight of the meaning and the reason we are doing something. The Jews were questioning if they should continue their feasts now that the city and Temple had been completed. The job in their mind was done, so perhaps the feasts should end to? Not so fast.
The Jews were looking at the duty of the feasts more like an obligation and a check-list, as opposed to being performed out of thankfulness and appreciation to the Lord. Holy exercises are to be done to the Lord; looking to His word as our rule and then His glory as our goal. Our desire ought to be pleasing Him, not ourselves, nor anyone else.
May we be mindful of our inner desires and reasoning for serving our King. For it is only with a humble heart and out of true submission to the Lord, that it will be acceptable to Him.
Lock Your Wings 
That stood out for me too as did this verse:
“Say to all your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn, was it really for me that you were fasting?”
Zechariah 7:5 NLT
What IS our motivation for tradition? Is it for ourselves? Is it to honour God. I think about Christmas especially because the busy-ness of the season really does take away from the meaning of the season. We can get so caught up with the concerts, the presents, the decorating, the cooking, the baking, the shopping, the wrapping, the buying, and so on that we sometimes lose sight of the worship, the awe, the reflection, the peace, the gratitude, the joy, the miracle ,and so on. When we lose the reason, the tradition becomes meaningless.
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