The Everyday Prayer

RE Verse reading–Hosea 1:1-11, 2:16-23, 3:1-5 (day five)  “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.” (3:3)  In the Hosea story, we are Gomer.  When she arrives home, her pride destroyed by the consequences of her sin, it is a picture of us when Christ first comes to adopts us, or when He comes to restore us after a period of disasterous rebellion.  Humility is a good thing even when gained through painful experience.  Gone is Gomer’s arrogance and independence.  Pray ours gone as well.  The rules are now simple and strict.  She is to be sexually faithful.  We are to have no other loves but Him.  The promise is huge.  He will live with us!  May the Lord help us all to appreciate what a gift this offer is.  May the hard years remind us to be happy that we are humbled and home.

RE Verse reading–Amos 1:1-11, 2:16-23, 3:1-5 (day four)  “The word of the Lord that came to Hosea. . . during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah” (1:1) Hosea is a reminder to us.  The work of God often takes years.  Like a patient artist, the Great God shapes the human soul.  He does not rush.  We can measure it historically.  From Uzziah to Hezekiah was nearly 100 years.  Even if Hosea’s ministry only briefly overlapped the first and the last, it was over 40 years long.  We can measure it emotionally.  One year of a bad marriage is painful.  40 years can hardly be described.  Even so, Hosea was faithful.  Like the God he served, he became “long-suffering”, (Philippians 1:29) conquering every hurdle and heartbreak with an eternal love.  I remember the words of Christ to Paul.  “I will show him how much he must suffer for my sake” (Acts 9:16).  Not what we imagine.  The way home is sometimes long.  May the Lord make us faithful.

RE Verse reading–Hosea 1:1-11, 2:16-23, 3:1-5  (day three) “The Lord said to me, ‘Go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.’ ” (3:1)  It is when we are most like God.  It is when we are “conformed to His image” and therefore most satisfied and peaceful.  When we love.  When we give ourselves freely to others without expecting or demanding a payment in return. It must have been hard for Hosea.  So easy to get tripped up by past hurts and resentments.  So easy to live life based on whether he had received love rather than on whether he was willing to give it.  It isn’t fair. Only those who believe in God can see the wisdom and the liberty that comes from such a decision.  “But now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”  (1 Corinthians 13:13)

RE Verse reading–Hosea 1:1-11, 2:16-23 (day two)  “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife” (1:2)  “Hosea is the story of a broken home and a broken heart” –Clovis Chappell.  In days prosperity and moral decline, a young prophet (Hosea) meets  a young woman (Gomer).  She is social and beautiful.  Swept off her feet by the attention of this young man with “the heart of a hero, the passion of a poet and the zeal of a saint”, she consents to marry him.  But she doesn’t stay faithful.  Perhaps his life and calling were harder than she expected.  Eventually she drifts to other lovers and a desolute life.  In the pain of his marriage, Hosea comes to see the pain in God’s heart.  God is the loving husband.  We are the petty, selfish, unfaithful wife.  Do you hear His tears with every sin?  As we study this week, we learn an important lesson.  He loves us even when we break his heart.

RE verse reading–Hosea1:1-11, 2:16-23 (day one)  “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord” (1:2)  When Christ died on the cross for our salvation, He set a pattern for us all.  Obedience will cost your life.  Ministry will too.  True, there will always be some who try to bargain a softer deal.  “First, let me go and bury my father” they will say.  But the moment you make anything else FIRST, including family, you prove that you are not ready to follow.  Life isn’t fair.  Hosea will find this out. Faithfulness will cost one person one thing, another person much more.  Ultimately, none of us gets the privilege of requesting a different assignment.  Either we accept God’s path and His right to choose or we refuse.  Either we embrace the cross–and the ultimate sacrifice it represents–or we miss the opportunity to follow at all.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day seven)  “You say, ‘Do not prophesy AGAINST Israel, and stop preaching AGAINST the house of Isaac.’ ” (7:16-17)  I got a text from a friend yesterday.  It said, “Ok buddy, no more woe, no more gloom and doom.”  Not sure whether he was referring to recent sermons or blogs or conversations.  I texted back (yes, I know how) that preaching Amos faithfully gave me no other choice.  If “ALL Scripture is inspired and profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16), we are not well served  by skipping the part that creates a holy anxiety for rightness.  The tension is not new.  People have always preferred good news to bad.  I just wonder whether they are mutually exclusive or pragmatically compatible.  Would I be a better man if I were more afraid of some things, less arrogant?  Would we be a better country?  I think so.  I think Amos thought so too.  I will see you in worship.  We will find hope together!

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day six)  “Behold, days are coming”, declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, but rather for hearing the words of the Lord”  (8:11)  One expression of God’s wrath is His silence.  After repeated attempts to communicate with us, He stops speaking.  It is useless to continue.  At first, we may not even notice.  Amos predicted it.  Romans 1 describes it.  “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”  C S Lewis says that ultimately we say to God “Thy will be done” or God says to us “Thy will be done” with all the terrible consequences.  The silence of God thunders His final warning.   Without His counsel and wisdom, our defeat is inevitable.  “Many, many bodies–flung everywhere.  Silence!” says Amos of Israel’s last day. (8:3)  His silence leads to our own.  May the prospect cause us to listen now while He still speaks.

RE Verse reading–Amos7:1-17, 8:1-3  “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer”  (8:2)  The fourth vision (0f five) in Amos 7-9 is of a basket of ripe fruit.  God had two messages.  On one level, there is nothing more luscious than fruit that is ripe and sweet.  It is the pinnacle and reward of agricultural enterprise.  An the same time, there is nothing more short-lived.  After only a few days, ripe fruit spoils.  A picture with two sides!  When Amos spoke, the nation was experiencing prosperity.  It seemed permanent to the people.  Success always does.  Even so, the end was near.  Nothing is independent from God’s judgement.   When things are going well, it is easy to forget God, but we deceive ourselves when we feel invincible.  The hardest time, and the most important time, for humility is when we are successful.  Even then, the time is ripe.  May the Lord teach us an appropriate fear.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:1-17, 8:1-3 (day four)  “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.  The High places will be destroyed and the sanctuaries ruined” (7:8)  It is axiomatic.  A wall or building that leans will eventually fall down.  Only straight walls are strong.  Gravity wins every time.  And better now than later.  It is the love of God that warns us of His strict building code.  It is His love when He pulls down those things, endeavors, patterns and possessions that will not later pass the inspection of eternity.  In the rubble of our first failure we can, at least, wake up to the problem and find the foundation again to begin building something that is more worthy.  May the Lord give us grace not to resist.  It is His love for us that pulls down all things that are not eternal.  And better now than later.

RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day three)  “Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer”  (7:8)  Amos 7, 8 and 9 are traditionally called “the five visions”.  Whether Amos saw them all at once or over time we don’t know.  In the first two, Amos sees a swarm of locusts and then a fire.  Both times, he cries out for mercy from God on the people.  The third vision is of a plumb line–an old engineers’s tool for determining whether a wall was perpendicular.  With this vision, God gives a new word.  “I will spare them no longer.”  Amos doesn’t even ask this time.  It is a mistake to think, “this is how I have always been and I am doing fine so far”.  The patience of God is not His approval, nor permission to continue without the promised consequences.  Without repentance, we will all come to the end of His patience.