Category: Daily Devotionals

JOYFUL CONFIDENCE

There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.  Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away.  Hosea 4: 1,3

         If I turn my back on my home and strive to make some distant place my abode, I separate myself from my heritage. Out of touch with my Father, I cease to be like Him. I forget his ways.  The sound of His voice becomes a distant memory; so distant that when I hear Him calling, I may not recognize the sound of it anymore.  Separated from home, from love, I languish because every living thing God created will strain for a connection with its Creator.  Even the land mourns, hungry for God’s nurturing touch.  Can you feel the labor pangs?  Can you hear the earth groaning?

All who live apart from God today waste away.  Dreams die.  Injustice overwhelms. Futility becomes a cancer that eats away purpose.  Continue reading “Joyful Confidence” →

UNDERSTANDING GOD’S COMPARISON

And it will be, like people, like priest.  Hosea 4:9

    I can understand God’s words another way.  “As the people go, so go the priests.”  We can often expect the pastors and people in ministry to be holier than we are, even to be holy for us, instead of us.  But since our religious leaders arise from among us, if we are lukewarm, then it stands to reason that many lukewarm men and women will seek to become our religious leaders.  An infected society affects the purity of the church.  We can find ourselves in a passive church and not even understand, for a while, that there is anything wrong.

Ah, but once in a while there are exceptions.  A Christian leader can arise out of obscurity, untainted by the world.  Though he was raised in our times, God cupped His hands around his spirit and preserved his conscience.  He may have tasted of this world, even sinned in a big way, but once he met Jesus, he only had eyes for the Savior.  Continue reading “Understanding God’s Comparison” →

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.  Continue reading “Advancement Based On What?” →

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.  I also will reject you from being My priest, since you have forgotten the law of your God.  Hosea 4:6

    When people languish, it is not because God isn’t faithful or loving, or strong, it is due to a lack of knowledge.  People may not be completely ignorant either.  They may know just enough to convince themselves that they know enough.

    The ones ultimately responsible for making sure the people are equipped with the knowledge of God are the priests, the religious leaders.  In Hosea’s time, even they forgot God’s law.  What chance then, did the common man have!

    Can you hear the call?  Any of us who possess a knowledge of God and His Word must do two things.  Continue reading “Who Is Responsible?” →

WHEN EVEN A PRIEST STUMBLES

Your people are like those who contend with the priest, so you will stumble by day, and the prophet also will stumble with you by night.  Hosea 4:4-5

In Deuteronomy 17, God told His children that in order to live well, they needed to turn to the priests for guidance.  They would receive wisdom and spiritual direction.  During Hosea’s day, because there was no knowledge of God in the land, the priests were no longer respected.  The people argued with them instead.  They shrugged their shoulders at their words of reproof.  Things were so perilous that, not only did the people trip over themselves for want of direction, the priests did also.  The priest’s spiritual condition was no better than that of the common man.

It is impossible to read the story of Hosea and the times in which he lived and not look in the mirror.  Continue reading “When Even a Priest Stumbles” →

THE COMPLICATED WAY HOME

“I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from Me; For now, O Ephraim, you have played the harlot.”  Hosea 4:3

            Harlotry was second nature to me.  It was far too easy to substitute my need for God for other people and other things because they satisfied for a while.  Consequently, I felt no impending crisis.  There were few clues that spiritual prostitution would lead me to the dead-end street of emotional bankruptcy.  I was on a journey to no-where, though the road signs promised otherwise.  I ended up lost and far from home.

            My circuitous path was not hidden from God.  Though I was off course and disoriented, He had memorized my wayward excursion.  He remembered each fork in the road and which way I chose to go.  Though I ended up feeling like a rat in a maze who couldn’t seem to find its way back, God held the map.  Continue reading “The Complicated Way Home” →

MISSED POTENTIAL

There is no knowledge of God in the land.  Therefore, the land mourns, and everyone who lives in it languishes.  Hosea 4:3

    Anyone who decides to live without God forfeits the joy of living to his fullest potential.  There is a part of him that will mourn, not fully understanding what it is that he has even lost.  He will languish for what he can not even define.

    The Creator who made a million decisions as He put us together, had dreams what we would become if we discovered His love and learned to live with Him.  He knew that we would realize the peak of our design only if we made Him Lord in the process.  To ignore our Creator is to turn our back on our potential.

    There are so many ways to languish when I choose to live without God.

• My marriage suffers.  It will never be more than what I can humanly create.  Tragically, I will miss things that can only be born of heaven.  I will fail to see my husband’s face soften when I say, “God led me to pray for you at 1:00 this morning…”
• My friendships suffer.  Fellowship will be relegated to small talk.  Sadly, we will never know how exhilarating it is to explore a biblical story together and lose track of time.
• My career suffers.  Never fully understanding my true potential, I will choose a life’s work that can only prove partially rewarding.  Because I am a spiritual being, whatever I decide to become must have a large spiritual component for me to be effective and fulfilled.  Allowing Jesus to breathe through my life whether I am a doctor, a clerk, a janitor, or a communicator is the capstone of all life’s experiences.

    Even planet Earth languishes under the stewardship of those alienated from God.  Our carelessness with God’s creation is exacting a great price on our land.  Wildlife, quality of water, and the air we breathe all bear the effects.

    God’s heart aches and His Creation languishes when divine intentions are spurned.  His greatest desire today is for us to know Him intimately.  In the process, we will walk with our hand in His and become all He intended.  “Languishing” will never describe the one who makes His home with Abba Father.

Oh God, You know that I knew ‘languishing’.  I have also known ‘mourning’.  But gratefully, I also know what it is like to come out of my skin because I know the joy of living in You.  Thank you!  Amen

A DIVINE LAWSUIT

Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land.  Hosea 4:1

            These had to be shocking words to Hosea, and ultimately, to the people of Israel.  God had a case against them.  “Case” is a legal term meaning “lawsuit”.  Think of it, God was the plaintiff.  Israel, the defendant.  Jehovah vs. Israel.  If I had been a Jew during that time, and if I’d seen such a charge written up on legal stationery, I would have fainted on the spot.  To have a lawsuit brought against you by God would be the most frightening of all life’s experiences.  Continue reading “A Divine Lawsuit” →

The Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land because there is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land.  Hosea 4:1

Truth, mercy and knowledge are all three connected.  When there is no knowledge of God, truth and mercy are non-existent. Truth has to be rooted in something more than personal opinion and mercy goes beyond self-interest.  In this post-modern society, and a biblical illiterate society for the most part, each person is left to define truth as he perceives it to be.  Whatever he thinks is right, is supposedly considered right for himself.  Feelings and logic determine his own brand of truth.

Without a plumb line for morality, immorality abounds.  Lawlessness begins to permeate a society and God takes issue with a nation that defies His law.  People to whom truth and mercy are foreign are also personally lost.  On difficult days, they’re angry and disillusioned.  On good days, they party hard and are dissociated from their soul’s cry for meaning.

Knowledge of God is always more than just information.  It is a ‘knowing’ as in the context of intimacy.  Technically, I can become intellectually informed about the person of God and say I have rubbed shoulders with truth.  This brings little change though.  Real transformation occurs when I unreservedly commit myself to a personal relationship with God.  In that total submission, there is a willingness to be vulnerable and to be loved completely by the One who is Truth and who also is called Mercy.  Anger leaves the lines of my face.  Dissociation from myself and others no longer defines my default way of relating.  At home in God, and in my own skin, I can flourish. This is called SHALOM.

Lord, I want to know You more.  When you look at me, I pray you will see truth and mercy.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

SEEING LOVE TOO LATE

After the sons of Israel will return and seek the Lord; and they will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.  Hosea 3:5

    Did you ever come to realize that a love you spurned was really precious?  You didn’t recognize the gift that it was until later.   That often happens.  I can decide how love should look and declare what I want out of the relationship.  In so doing, I close myself off from the myriad of other ways love is expressed.  It isn’t until it’s gone that I look back with improved vision.  I am humbled as I remember one tender gesture after another and think, “How could I have been so blind?”  Continue reading “Seeing Love Too Late” →