ADVANCEMENT BASED ON WHAT?

They (the priests) feed on the sin of My people and direct their desire toward their iniquity.  Hosea 4:8

    I want you to know that I don’t send out devotionals lightly.  Whenever I embark on the challenge of teaching a book, the text dictates the subject matter.  While I may, in the past, wanted to gravitate toward messages that underscored the Fatherhood of God and His great love for His children, that is no longer the case.  I made a vow a few years ago to honor the whole counsel of God and to be responsible with the Scriptures.

    The book of Hosea is ultimately about God’s unfailing love in the face of spiritual harlotry.  What a moving theme.  However, the book reads like a novel and a plot is always woven with light and dark threads.  Extravagant love is more beautifully highlighted when it is given to those who are undeserving. 

    To understand this book is to embrace the historical landscape which includes God’s messages to the priests of the day. God is grieved, even angry, over the sins of the ones who should know better.  Instead of teaching and modeling His ways, they have personally succumbed to the temptation to use religion as a means of self-advancement.  They feed on the sins of others and even encourage them to keep sinning.  Since Scripture, even its stories, are instructive, we should see if any of this applies to us today.  How might a modern-day priest, not a layman in this case but a minister, feed on others’ iniquity?

•     A minister could choose to water down messages in order to be liked.  He makes the people feel good, leaves them in their sin, but personally benefits from being one they admire and reward.
•     A minister could look at his post as a job, a career track, instead of a holy calling.  A career is directed by men; a calling, by God.
•     A minister might refrain from teaching a biblical text that is confrontational, thereby protecting the security of his future.

    Any who teach and are called to birth spiritual babies, including me, need to take another look at the prophets and apostles.  When they were faithful to be God’s mouthpiece, not His editor, they never knew the outcome.  Sometimes, they saw a great harvest.  Other times, they were run out-of-town. Whenever I play architect and build a ministry to create a faithful following to myself, I am guilty of God’s charges in Hosea.

    I lift every one in ministry to the throne, that we would be straight arrows.  No subversive, self-serving agendas.

If I need to be popular, I will never be Your disciple.  I follow in Jesus’ footsteps, all the way to the cross.  Amen