JMD Devotional 169 Hosea 4:6-12 Over-Blessed
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you that you shall be no priest to Me; seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. The more they increased and multiplied [in prosperity and power], the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.
They feed on the sin of My people and set their heart on their iniquity. And it shall be: Like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their doings.
For they shall eat and not have enough; they shall play the harlot and beget no increase, because they have forsaken the Lord for harlotry; harlotry and wine and new wine take away the heart and the mind and the spiritual understanding. My people [habitually] ask counsel of their [senseless] wood [idols], and their staff [of wood] gives them oracles and instructs them. For the spirit of harlotry has led them astray and they have played the harlot, withdrawing themselves from subjection to their God.
Who would imagine! The more God materially blessed the nation, the more distant the people departed from their faith and the more ways they found to be unfaithful. It is the trap of focusing on the gift rather than on the giver; of letting material things take prominence over the spiritual. But am I speaking of Israel or America? In many ways we shadow them: sooner or later judgment will come. One way God gets our attention is to raise the cost of living and diminishing our wages as the destroyer is unleashed to mold, tarnish and corrode what we most prized; so reveal its transience. The knowledge of God and our relationship to Him is what we should most cherish. Period.
Dear God,
I hunger for the knowledge of God, of knowing You, of understanding this life. I want to get at least one thing right: that is my relationship with You. Help me to live deliberately, to put important things first and to let go of trivial distractions. Forgive me for letting material things consume me, focusing on them only gives me anxiety. May I trust in You for my needs so I can seek Your kingdom as my primary vision.
Amen
All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by
the Lockman Foundation. (AMP)
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation
*New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)
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They feed on the sin of My people and set their heart on their iniquity. And it shall be: Like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their doings.
For they shall eat and not have enough; they shall play the harlot and beget no increase, because they have forsaken the Lord for harlotry; harlotry and wine and new wine take away the heart and the mind and the spiritual understanding. My people [habitually] ask counsel of their [senseless] wood [idols], and their staff [of wood] gives them oracles and instructs them. For the spirit of harlotry has led them astray and they have played the harlot, withdrawing themselves from subjection to their God.
Who would imagine! The more God materially blessed the nation, the more distant the people departed from their faith and the more ways they found to be unfaithful. It is the trap of focusing on the gift rather than on the giver; of letting material things take prominence over the spiritual. But am I speaking of Israel or America? In many ways we shadow them: sooner or later judgment will come. One way God gets our attention is to raise the cost of living and diminishing our wages as the destroyer is unleashed to mold, tarnish and corrode what we most prized; so reveal its transience. The knowledge of God and our relationship to Him is what we should most cherish. Period.
Dear God,
I hunger for the knowledge of God, of knowing You, of understanding this life. I want to get at least one thing right: that is my relationship with You. Help me to live deliberately, to put important things first and to let go of trivial distractions. Forgive me for letting material things consume me, focusing on them only gives me anxiety. May I trust in You for my needs so I can seek Your kingdom as my primary vision.
Amen
All (but*) quotes are from The Amplified Bible, published by
the Lockman Foundation. (AMP)
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation
*New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
**Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. (Eugene Peterson's easy-to-read, contemporary Scripture translation)
If you know of someone who would like to subscribe to
my daily devotional, please forward.
jamesdinsmore_32907@yahoo.com
Short, concise, thought-provoking.
More features:
http://SaintJamesPoetry.blogspot.com
http://recoverydevotional.blogspot.com/
http://jamesezadventures.blogspot.com/
posted by James M. Dinsmore at 11:57 AM
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