I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
Today I begin reading the book of Hosea, which starts with Hosea being given a very heartbreaking instruction by God. Hosea is told to go and marry a prostitute. He is to marry a woman that he knows is going to be unfaithful to him. God gives Hosea instructions on what to name his children. His first born he is told to name Jezreel to indicate that God is going to bring judgment against Israel (the Northern Kingdom) for an atrocity committed at Jezreel. God is going to bring this judgment to bear in the Jezreel valley. When his wife becomes pregnant again, Hosea is told to name this child “Not Loved” (what a poor child to go through life with that name) because God was going to stop showing love to Israel, although He would continue to show love to the Kingdom of Judah. Finally, Hosea is told to name his second son “Not My People” (another child for whom I feel sorry) because God declared that the people of Israel were not His people any longer. However, this is followed up by a prophecy that the day would come when God would once again call the people of Israel His people. He would reunite the people of Israel and of Judah into one people. They would be called the children of the living God. It would be a day of rejoicing when God planted His people once more in His land.
Through Hosea God tells Israel that He will strand her in a desert place with no food, clothing or water. When this happens, she will run after the other things that she had worshiped in place of God in order to obtain life’s necessities and pleasures, but God will block her path. Then, and only then, will she turn back to God. She did not realize that the good things she had that she sacrificed to other gods were gifts from the only true God. As a result God was going to take those things from her and turn her out into the desert to experience privation and suffering. But God was going to win her back. The day would come when God would woo His people back and they would no longer view themselves as His slave, but as His wife. They would no longer seek after other gods. In that day, God would grant them peace and call those who He had said were not His people His people.
I read Hosea’s indictment of Israel and it reminds me of Christians in the U.S.(and most of Western Civilization). God gave us wealth beyond imagining. Instead of using it to glorify God (there are notable exceptions to this), all too many of us used this wealth for our own pleasure. We began to act as if we were entitled to it. We put ourselves in place of God and used the gifts He had given us to honor ourselves. If we do not turn from our idolatry, God will take His gifts from us. But He promises that He will woo us back, that He will show us His love even as we experience the desert of privation and suffering. Let us turn to Him now so that we may show the world the goodness of the Lord and help fulfill this prophecy that people will tremble in awe of the Lord’s goodness.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ (Anointed One) has become a child of God. If we are children of God, then we will love God our Father. If we love the Father, then we will love His children. We can know that we love God and His children if we obey His commands. Jesus was revealed as God’s Son by both His baptism (water) and His death (blood). In addition, the Holy Spirit confirms this. So we have three things which testify to Jesus as the Anointed One of God, water, blood and spirit. Those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God acknowledge this testimony, while those who deny that Jesus is the Son of God are calling God a liar. It is God Himself who is testifying that Jesus is His Son through these three things, spirit, water and blood.
We may know that we have eternal life if we love God. And we know that we love God if we love our fellow believers. We know we love our fellow believers if we act to meet their needs. When did I last act to show my love for my fellow believers? I know the answer to that question and it is long enough ago to convict me that waiting for such an opportunity to come into my path is not enough. I need to seek a way to show my love of my fellow believers and of my fellow man.
John has three themes in this short letter. The first two are closely related. They are that we are to love one another and that if we love one another it will show in our actions. Love is not passive, it leads to actions. Love causes us not only to want what is best for the one we love, but to act so that they will have that which is best for them. The third theme is that those who have been saved and become God’s children do not make it a practice of sinning. If we are truly God’s children we will not make plans to do that which we know to be wrong.
Today’s psalm encourages us to think about what our life would have been like if God had not been on our side. Think of all of the ways in which we could have been overwhelmed by the troubles we have faced in this life. I remember my Dad talking about events from his younger years (in particular a girl he dated before he met my Mom) and saying, “But for the grace of God.” He rarely ever completely said what he thought might have happened if it were not for God’s grace but it was clear that he did not know why he did not make a decision that looking back he realized would have been a very bad decision. I see that in my own life. I look back and see times where I do not know why I did not make the choice that would have led to disaster, or where I made a choice that should have led to disaster but circumstances beyond my control intervened to deflect my life from a course of woe. Times that I look back on and think, “There, but for the grace of God.” Satan has laid traps for my feet, but even when I took my eyes off of God, God has been faithful and broken those traps in order to set me free. I will praise the Lord and tell the world that my help is from the Lord.
If we flatter our friends, we may lead them to believe they are more talented than they truly are which may lead them to take actions that will lead to their humiliation or worse. Evil people think they are freer than those who do good, but they are instead trapped by their sin. The righteous on the other hand are freed from the trap of sin and for this they rejoice. The godly care about the rights of the poor, but the wicked do not care about anything. Always remember that what someone says they care about is not what is important, what is important is what their actions show they care about. You can get people agitated by mocking your enemy, but the wise person will calm anger. Think about what this means when you judge the behavior of those around you, are they mocking certain people to stir up anger against them? Or are they working to calm anger so that people can work together? Do not judge them by what they say about themselves or by what others say about them. Judge them by what they do.