2nd Nov

2 Kings 15     Hosea 8     Titus 1     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Hosea 8

The Life Study Bible advises us to read this chapter with the understanding that we might often seek repentance only in order to dodge dealing with the negative results of our behaviour, rather than truly asking for God to change our inmost being to be less ‘me’ and more ‘Him’. In this chapter, God attacks the physical fortresses and defences of Israel (v.14). These physical barriers are symptomatic of Israel’s attempt to seek protection from their one-enemy Assyria, rather than turning to face God (v.9). God tells us in Zechariah 2:5 that ‘I myself will be a wall of fire around [Jerusalem]…and the glory within’. Israel has fooled itself into thinking that their barricade built through the support of an enemy is better. Israel doesn’t place its trust in God, breaking His heart again. In v.14 God actually feels forgotten.

Although imbued with anger, God is speaking of His raw emotion. Again remembering the first four chapters of Hosea, God loves His people passionately, alluring them in the desert (2:14), and betrothing them to Himself forever (2:19). Israel had no reason to distrust God, and yet they did. Why do we find it so easy to doubt Him even though He has never left us? Another thing that is easy for us to do is corrupt the good things God gave us, as v.11 shows. We need only think of sex, power, wisdom, food, prosperity, – even spiritual gifts – are all things that are corrupted and abused in our unfaithful hands. Moreover, in v.6, God cries out against the foolishness of false idolatry. These man-made metal idols cannot even compete against the true sovereignty of God Himself, and we are just as foolish when we elevate our ‘modern’ idols (sex, food etc.) above God. To God, idolatry isn’t a competition – it’s just stupidity, and we’re so senseless that at times we don’t even realise we’re doing it (v.4, 7, 13).

Is our repentance authentic, or are we only seeking to avoid answering for our misdeeds? Do we grasp just how foolish we are when we replace God with worldly things? Do we realise just how much we hurt God when we doubt Him? Do we really acknowledge who He is, and what He has done for us?

(member of the congregation)

1st Nov

2 Kings 14     Hosea 7     2 Timothy 4     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

The message of chapter 7 seems to be the inescapability of sin. The sadness of this truth is that often we’re trying to claw our way out of the pit, but end-up sinning again in the process. It’s like stealing a biscuit, and fibbing about it afterwards, hoping to dodge the result of the original sneaky, sinful action. It’s also like being a bit rude to someone because we felt they deserved it, or we don’t feel sorry, or see the need to be sorry, so we remain unrepentant and hostile to our brother or sister.  Vv.8-9 describe Ephraim as a flat-bread, with all its energy sapped out of it; unaware of the heated oven it’s in, Ephraim is slowly burning away at the edges, and the heat is working its way inwards. Israel, on the other hand, is arrogant and should know better (v.10). We must be on our guard from senselessness - being led astray is not an excuse when we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, clutching at our soul for the Lord. We must also remember that we lead ourselves astray just as much as by the devil and other people.

Vv.7, 10, and 13 show that God is willing to listen and eager to save but Israel shuns God, prizing the worldly-won opinion of man above all else (v.3). V.13 in particular declares God’s desire to bring His people back to safety, but not only do they refuse, but actually ‘speak falsely’, denying the saving nature of God. Exodus seems rendered as some long-forgotten memory of an age before, belonging to ancestors, but not relevant to this generation. Jesus warns of this attitude (Matt. 17:17, 16:4), and we mustn’t be so arrogant as to assume this isn’t applicable to us. Christ-like humility and vulnerability are counter-cultural, and this is no new story; we need to stop trying to justify ourselves with argument, excuses, and ignorance, and allow God to justify us – for it is only to Him, not man, that we need to be justified.

Do we seek God’s face earnestly? Do we realise that ‘big’ sins and ‘small’ sins all hurt God? Do we, unlike Israel in this chapter, admit that we are truly stuck in sin, and reach out for God to pull us back up, take us home and clean us up? Do we let God be God?

(member of the congregation)

Oct 31st

2 Kings 13     Hosea 5-6     2 Timothy 3     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Hosea 5-6

Chapters 5 and 6 are concerned with the forthcoming punishment to be poured out upon Israel. Although the model of marriage is no longer the text’s focus, God asked Hosea to use his marriage for a purpose, and this is reflected in the structure of the Book of Hosea. Therefore, God’s passion for His people must be remembered throughout reading these chapters. It seems clear that God is asking us to read chapter 5 onwards with His faithfulness and plan of salvation in mind, otherwise the conclusion of reconciliation as mapped-out in Hosea’s love story would not only be pointless, but misleading and false. 

Chapter 5 begins by addressing the priests, then the Israelites, then the ‘royal house’; it appears that their status and social standing has given self-appointed licence to their sin, as God describes them as being a ‘snare’ and ‘a net spread out’. Israel was, of course, God’s holy nation, but verse 1 suggests that they were not merely following idolatrous traditions of other cultures, but had become the ringleaders.

God is furious, and often we find this Old Testament anger difficult to match with the New Testament message of God’s self-sacrificial peace. If we are to understand God’s anger in context of His broken-heart, I think it starts to make more sense. It is not until v.15 that God really emphasises that Israel’s sin is not about law-breaking, but about heart-breaking, as He desires the Israelites to seek His face in earnest, not just offer legalistic sacrifices (Ch.6:6). Israel’s false repentance is the topic of chapter 6, and it appears that God is being treated as a kind of ‘sure thing’, like a big softy who will soon change His mind. God tackles this, and it is the heart-wrenching v.10 that God says ‘I have seen a horrible thing in Israel’. Repentance must come from the head and heart, and the Israelites must begin to produce children of love and faithfulness to God, not the illegitimate children of sin (5:7). This challenge is just as relevant to us – do we repent only when our minds tell us to? Or do we refuse to repent until we feel like it? The Lord requires both – to ‘act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly’ (Micah 6:8), using head and heart.

(member of the congregation)

Oct 30th

2 Kings 12     Hosea 3-4     2 Timothy 2     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Hosea 3-4

The narrative of Hosea is swift. By the end of chapter 3, the narrative shifts from Hosea’s personal life to the specific case of Israel, and the nation’s charge of unfaithfulness. Hosea 1-3, however, operates as a precursor of salvation and Hosea’s name in fact means ‘salvation’.

Chapter 3 explores the reconciliation between husband and wife, and truthfully it began in chapter 2 when the husband sought to ‘allure’ her back. God makes the first move with us (1 John 4:19). God commands Hosea to live with his wife, and so reconciliation with God quite literally looks like living with Him. When we turn to God, do we want to ‘move in’ with Him? As Jesus says in John 14:3, ‘in my Father’s house there are many rooms…I am going there to prepare a place for you’. How exciting! The God who betroths us to Himself forever, in love, compassion, righteousness…wants us to move in with Him, and He is getting our home ready! We really have very little to do except love Him, and when we know Him, He is not hard to love. Theologically speaking, salvation is dependent upon God inviting us back. We have no right to demand anything from the One we have betrayed, but He loves us too much to let us go.

Chapter 4 begins to explore the charges against Israel specifically. Verse 6 is particularly noticeable, as God says ‘I will destroy your mother’. Given our understanding of Hosea 1, we can interpret this verse as meaning God is rooting-out the rotten part of our being that produces sin (ie: the offspring of this mother). Chapter 4 continues to warn Israel against the infectiousness of sin, and we must not cause others to stumble (Matt. 18:6). God makes no distinction between priest, prophets, kings, and the every-day idolater. Hosea 4 is actually highlighting this lack of distinction. Do we sometimes think our sin is ‘less bad’ because of our worldly identity, because of our position in church or work, or because we have been given certain spiritual gifts? The end of Chapter 4 returns to the image of relationship – are we living with God? Have we really ‘moved in’ with Him, or are we only stopping over at weekends, or when we’re having fun? We are the first and last thought in God’s mind – is He in ours?

(member of the congregation)

Oct 29th

2 Kings 10-11     Hosea 2     2 Timothy 1     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Hosea 2

Verse 4 re-emphasises the point that actions deeply injure God when they are borne of a heart faithful to Him – they are the offspring of unfaithfulness. In this chapter, God is addressing the fact that we are enticed by the fancies of ‘another’ (ie: the provision of the world or even of our self). In actual fact, verses 5 and 8 don’t even compare. Where the lover provides food, water, wool, linen, and the like, the true husband provides grain, wine, oil, and ‘lavished her on silver and gold’. I think the distinction between the lover’s ‘food’ and the husband’s ‘grain’ should not be overlooked; ‘food’ is ready-made and processed, but ‘grain’, though providing the essentials of food, gives the wife freedom to make what she likes.  Where the lover gives wool and linen, the husband ‘lavishes silver and gold’, which again enables the wife to have freedom in the fabrics the wife purchases. Although God’s gifts might appear simpler and require effort from us, they are given with incomparably more freedom and room for growth. God never gives us less than best, most perfectly shown in the gift of His son.

This reading of verses 5-8 sets us up for understanding the husband’s response to the wife’s unfaithfulness. It is not to disown her, but to ‘allure her’ (v.14). The husband designs to show his wife just how irresistible he is, to draw her back to himself through willingness. This could be seen as reflecting the Calvinistic theology of ‘irresistible grace’; once we have seen the grace of God in its fullness, we could not possibly walk away (though this is a simplification). In v.15, the husband longs for his wife to be as she was in her youth, no longer calling him ‘master’, but ‘husband’. Jesus says to His disciples in John 15:15, ‘I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends, for a servant does not know his master’s business’. Husband and wife are partners for life; friends walk together through thick and thin. Do we really appreciate that this is the level of intimacy God desires with us?

Verses 19-20 display the way in which the husband woos his wife to win her heart back. ‘I will betroth you to me forever’, he says, ‘in love and compassion’. The sadness is the undeserving unfaithful merely acknowledge the Lord (v.20). Marriage is a decision, but without the love of the heart it will soon become very empty and painful. Are we guilty of coldness in response to God’s warmth? Do we really let God in to our hearts, or only into our minds?

(member of the congregation)

Oct 28th

2 Kings 9     Hosea 1     1 Timothy 6     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

Hosea 1

It is moving to think that the Book of Hosea is, in essence, the story of a broken marriage. Hosea was just a man who could have been anyone – someone like you or me – who was called to sacrifice his emotional and family life for God’s purposes. Sometimes God chooses to speak through great kings and prophets, other times he speaks through an ‘everyman’. Although this account took place between 790 and 686 BC, it is vital that we remember that God intended this experience of this one man, this story of a broken marriage, to affect our lives. We must never underestimate the value of our personal lives for God. We should be staggered at Hosea’s obedience, and challenged by it.

Hosea 1, I think, is God’s irrefutably clear expression that we have broken His heart. God is using the model of marriage to demonstrate that our relationship with Him could (and should) be deeply intimate – but we (individually and corporately, historically and presently) have broken His heart. Others have caught our attention and distracted us; our hearts have wandered into the hands, eyes, and pockets of ‘the World’, abandoning the One who passionately chases after us. The metaphor is that we have chosen to give birth to children of unfaithfulness. In other words, our hearts are unfaithful when consort with pride, envy, greed, selfishness…and the ‘children’ we produce are sinful destructions. Hosea 1 exposes this, by using the model of marriage. We are called to be faithful to the lover of our soul, the Lord God, and produce holy and righteous ‘children’, or in other words, fruit of the Spirit. Our actions are symptomatic of the condition of our heart. Simply put, hearts faithful to God produce beautiful works, and show the smile of one, big, happy family. As Jesus says in John 13:35, ‘by this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’; and John, 14:23 ‘if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching’.

(member of the congregation)

Oct 27th

2 Kings 8     Daniel 12     1 Timothy 5     (Click on the Reference to go to the passage)

the writing is on the wall  Daniel 12 1b-2

…at that time your people – everyone whose name is written in the book of life – will be delivered.  Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.

We have now reached the last chapter of this remarkable book of colourful stories and incomprehensible prophecy (even bible scholars don’t fully grasp the meaning!).  The writing was on the wall for Belshazzar in chapter 5 which for him meant imminent doom but now 25 centuries later we often use the phrase to indicate the inevitability of some outcome ie the future is predetermined.  The challenge we can take from this passage is to ask ourselves is ‘is our name written in the book of life’?

Daniel’s life was a fantastic example of a man who lived out his faith in the God of Israel even though he was in exile in a foreign country.  In Dan 1:8 we see that he was in the world but not of the world - ..resolved not to defile himself…and in Dan 6:10 we read that he openly prayed which defied the king’s decree and should have meant his death. Daniel was so close to God that he was used mightily to interpret dreams and he survived the lions’ den resulting in the king openly admitting the power of Daniel’s God.

I readily admit I am not as focused or as resolved as Daniel and so my life is not used as mightily as his. We can all be sure that the writing on the wall for Daniel is that his name is written in the book of life but what about mine? 

At the time of writing this reflection we have just started on a sermon series in Ephesians and these words of comfort and encouragement were read Eph 1:14-15. ‘Having believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Our writing is on the wall but we can know what it is as the Holy Spirit is guaranteeing our everlasting future.  Let’s stop and thank God now for this wonderful encouragement and let us be resolved to live today in a way that honours Him.  

(member of women’s ministry)