Friday, July 20: Hosea 9 - What's your life-trajectory?.

The message of so many of the prophets is difficult reading….doom and gloom, doom and gloom. Hosea’s message has become like that; every chapter is filled with chastisement.

Verse 7: The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac.

Verse17: My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.

I hear people complain that the prophets only spoke judgment to Israel.  Where’s the good news? I’ve been thinking about that since I am reading so many of the prophets this year. The prophets spoke over the course of hundreds of years. For hundreds of years God has been trying to get their attention.  Does that mean that God is some kind of an ogre? NO! God cared. Israel was abandoning God and His ways and God was calling them back home.

Over the last few years I have noticed more and more gruesome TV ads trying to get people to stop smoking. It seems that the ads are appearing more frequently. Does the presence of these ads on TV mean our government, who sponsors the ads, is some kind of an ogre? NO, they recognize the insidious nature of smoking and how bad it is for one’s health and they are trying to encourage people to stop smoking.

God was trying to get people to stop sinning…

Wait, God’s Word is for today as well as back then. Hosea’s word is a word for me to check my behavior and my life so that I stop turning from the Lord!

Judgment awaits people today who remain in their sin, just as it awaited Israel if they remained in their sin.

Think about it… what is the trajectory of your life? Are you moving closer to God or moving away from Him?

Lord, help me to pause today from the rush of life and examine my life trajectory.  What should it do to move closer to You and what should I avoid so that I move closer to You as well?  Show me, Oh Lord, that I may draw nearer to You with every breath I take… Amen.