Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Hosea 5-8; Matthew 18:21-35
Hosea chapter 5 starts off with talking about how judgement is on Israel and then states in verse 6 how the Lord has withdrawn from them. But again, at the end of this chapter God says that if the Israelites acknowledge their guilt and seek His face, He will return again.
God mentions again in chapter 8:13 that He would redeem them, but they speak lies against Him. They try their best to do things on their own, but God will destroy all of it (8:14).
Those that tried to truly live the way God wanted back then, in a country that openly rebelled against God, would be similar to Christians living in North America today. Our society tries to provide all our needs on its own, without God. As useless as it seems, when we read about Israel's attempts at doing things without God, this is similar to what our society today is trying as well.
Why would I want to join in with that? We see clearly the end result. I want to have a desire to live for God and do things the way He wants, and not try to go do things myself without His help.
In our reading from Matthew, we get a reminder again about forgiving others. It's easy to ask for forgiveness when we've done something we know is wrong, and then we really appreciate how God forgives and forgets our sin. But it is often difficult to forgive when someone has done the same sin to us.
3 comments:
This verse jumped out at me....
For I desire steadfast love[e] and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Our faith is not an external thing, it is internal. It is true that when the internal if genuine, there will be external evidence, but the point is that God can see through our deeds to our true motives and to our heart. It's our heart He's after.
Sometimes, though, we seem to almost have the attitude that God should chase us, that we're some sort of prize, that He should be happy we chose Him. But oh how the reverse is true! Our NT passage drives that home. We need to have a firm grasp on the seriousness of our sin, and our complete inability to pay that debt, in order to truly understand what God did for us, and how fortunate we are that He chose us.
God is judge of all the earth. His judgement which is always right, began with man's first sin. Because none of us lives up to God's righteous standards, judgement is always hanging over our heads. The Bible tells us that God expressed His anger in judgement in order to punish sin, to reveal Himself as God, to drive His people to repentance, and to purify them.
Thankfully God's judgements always include elements of both justice and grace. We must remember that judgement is not God's last word to those who believe in Him, for mercy wins out over judgement.
This stood out for me:
They couldn’t turn to God if they wanted to.
Their evil life is a bad habit.....When they decide to get their lives together
and go off looking for God once again,
They’ll find it’s too late.
I, God, will be long gone.
The reality is that one day it will be too late. God is a merciful God and will forgive us seventy times seven but even that will have a limit on judgement day.
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