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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Then they forgot Me.”
“So I will be like a lion to them, like a leopard I will
lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip
them open; like a lion I will devour them—a wild animal will tear them apart.”
“You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against Me,
against your helper. Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your
rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? So in
My anger I gave you a king, and in My wrath I took him away.”
Hosea 13:4-6a
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever lost touch with someone for awhile?
I know I have.
Sometimes it has been by no fault of my own as I tried and
tried to reconnect with the person with no response. But sometimes, I was very
much at fault, allowing life’s events to shackle me and seemingly leave me no
time to return a call, text, e-mail, card, or any other means by which a person
is trying to reach me.
In the end translation, it’s no fun to feel like you’ve been
forgotten or forsaken by someone.
Let’s translate this idea towards our relationships with
God. Here are two things you can be sure of:
1. God always hears our calls to Him and addresses them. He
is always in touch with us.
2. When it comes to the matter of losing touch in our relationship
with God, we are always the ones at fault and it happens way too much. In fact,
even one time is too many.
It’s true, right?
I mean, we can’t treat our relationship with God like we do
any other relationship in life. He is the Lord God Almighty, the Maker and
Master of all things. Everything is subordinate to Him and He is the King of
all kings and Lord of all lords. He to have our absolute attention, not just
some of the time but rather all of the time.
But unfortunately, that’s not what happens, is it?
We get so caught up in the daily trappings of the world -
our work, our families, our hobbies, etc - that God often gets forced out of
our schedules. Instead of giving Him our best in any day and giving it to Him
first, we too often just give God the leftovers, if anything at all.
This isn’t just a present day problem for when we look again
at our scripture passage for today, we find that the Old Testament Israelites of
Hosea’s time had allowed God to get away from their lives, something that God
wasn’t going to allow to sustain.
“Then they forgot Me.”
“So I will be like a
lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her
cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them—a
wild animal will tear them apart.”
“You are destroyed,
Israel, because you are against Me, against your helper. Where is your king,
that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you
said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? So in My anger I gave you a king, and in My
wrath I took him away.” Hosea 13:4-6a
God wastes no time telling the reader that there was a major
issue in the relationship between Him and His people for they had forgotten
Him. In fact, it was even worse than that because the Israelites had not only
made a conscientious point to disregard God, they had decided to give their
devotion to other gods altogether.
You heard it right. The Israelites had placed their full
faith in the gods that pagans worshiped, gods that were as dead as the
spiritual life of those who chased after them. But note that God was not going
to pay second fiddle to anything or anyone else and so He would take actions
that served to get His people’s attention, actions that would be akin to
attacks by predatory animals:
“So I will be like a
lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk by the path. Like a bear robbed of her
cubs, I will attack them and rip them open; like a lion I will devour them—a
wild animal will tear them apart.”
God was going to break up the sinful worship party His
people were throwing and do it a big way. They were against Him, their helper
and so He would now be against them. His wrath would be similar to the rage
found when lions, leopards, or bears assaulted their prey and indeed the major
destruction and annihilation the Israelites would experience at the hands of
the Assyrians and Babylonians would bring God’s words of judgment to life. They
were His instruments of punishments, His lions and leopards and bears.
Note also here that God was going to strip the Israelites of
their leadership. You’ll recall that Israel didn’t always have kings. There was
a time when the nation was ruled by people God appointed and anointed to guide
His people in accordance with His desires. These rulers were known as judges
who were the leaders of Israel for quite some time before the Israelites
decided they wanted to be governed like the nations surrounding them, nations
that all had kings. And so the people of Israel asked God to allow them to have
kings and God relented, even He knew well in advance that it wasn’t the right
move for His people to make. Sure enough, Israel’s (and later Judah’s) kings
were mostly evil men who were openly wicked in God’s sight and led their people
to be the same. All and all, they were mostly useless in God’s sight, more His
enemies than His allies.
And so God took their king away before He sent His people
into a seventy year exile, all after having lost everything they owned.
Do you think that got their attention?
We know it did because after they had served God’s imposed
penalty, they were permitted to return to their homeland to rebuild their
homes, their lives, and their relationships with God. And that’s just what they
did as you can read in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, great reads in the Bible
about life in Israel, post-exile.
You know the saddest part of this whole story is that none
of it ever had to happen. All the Israelites had to do is give God their
fullest devotion and dedication, making Him fully the God of their lives. Had
they done that, He would never have had to take action to get their attention
because He would have already had it.
The same applies to us today. God is always in touch with
us; all we need to do is stay in touch with Him.
If we do, then life will be good.
If we don’t, then you can expect that God is going to do
something to get our attention.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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