READ: Hosea 4, 5, & 6

THINK:

¹Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. ²After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. ³Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. — Hosea 6:1-3

Have you ever thought about how awesome God’s resume would look? Traits: All-powerful, all-knowing, infinitely loving and merciful, everlastingly faithful. Accomplishments: Created the universe, oversees the ongoing sustenance of the world. Hobbies include parting huge bodies of water (favorite: Red Sea).

Obviously, God needs no resume; and, even if He did, we would have to go well beyond words on a cold piece of paper to pursue knowledge of Him. Sadly, many people know facts about God, but few possess a “heart understanding” of those facts’ significance. Fewer still have any personal experience with the blessings of God.

God wants you to know Him. The prophet Hosea tells us how when he writes, “Let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). Just like today, many in that era some 2,700 years ago allowed blessings to distract them from, rather than help them, in developing a deeper relationship with God. But amid that spiritual wilderness, Hosea conveys some key points:

1.  It’s possible. If you hear a voice telling you otherwise, know that it’s not God, but Satan, who is attacking the knowledge of God in your life (2 Corinthians 10:5). Consider Hosea 6:6: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

2.  It’s available.  Hosea writes, “His going forth is as sure as the dawn” (6:3). Now, how worried are you that the sun won’t come up tomorrow morning? Be assured that every moment God is going forth into the world He created, and showing Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are yielded to Him.

3.  It’s abundant. Right now you might be thinking, but James, my problems are a lot bigger than the knowledge of God could solve. You sure about that? Why don’t you invite God, in all of His sufficiency and power and loving kindness, into the center of your circumstances, and let me know in a month how you’re doing?

Here’s a wonderful truth: A man will begin to prepare his heart to seek the Lord when he’s convinced God will respond in grace. Hosea 6:1 says, “For he has torn us, that he may heal us.”

Wherever you are, pursue the knowledge of God. The rewards are well worth it: God will restore, He will revive, He will raise up.

ASK:· Am I convinced that if I pursue God, He will respond in grace? Do I know a lot of facts about God, or do I know Him? Have I had a personal experience with the Lord?

PRAY: Father,I do want to know You, but sometimes You seem so far off. I know that’s because of my lack of faith. Prepare my heart, and by Your Spirit, convince me that You will respond in grace. Thank You for pursuing me, even when I’m not pursuing You. Help me to know You, not just about You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

From:  Pastor James McDonald, Harvest Bible Chapel

READ: Hebrews 12

THINK: One thing I think we do too little of in America today – partially because information and books like the Bible are so easily and readily accessible to us online or even on our phones – is memorize Scripture. But it’s important for us to internalize the Word of God. So today, instead taking time to read devotional thoughts, let’s all take some time to memorize Hebrews 12:1-3. It is one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Bonus challenge: If you already knew that one or if you want to memorize another great one, take time to memorize Hebrews 12:28-29

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

PRAY: Take some time today to thank God for the blessing of knowing him more through his Word. Thank him for the incredible inheritance we receive in him and the hope that is always alive for us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.

READ: Amos 7-9

THINK: Happy New Year! Every new year brings with it the promise of a fresh start, a new opportunity to live differently. As you consider the year ahead, and all that 2014 will mean for you, I have just a short thought and challenge for you:

The vision in Amos 7:1-9 has always been a compelling one for me, particularly because of the part where God holds up a plumb line. For anyone who may be unfamiliar, a plumb line is a very simple yet very critical part of building or constructing anything. It is a weight, of some sort, tied to a string. When you hold the top of the string and allow gravity to do its work, the weight will cause the string to hang straight down. And you can be sure that what you are building is straight by lining it up with the plumb line.

In the days of Amos, Israel aligned themselves with foreign nations and foreign gods. Much the Leaning Tower of Pisa above, their hearts, minds, and lives were not square with God’s design. My question for you in 2014 is: What will be your plumb line this year? What will be your standard, your benchmark, your guide for making decisions in the coming year?

You have a lot of options. For many of us, the approval of others is our plumb line. We make choices based on what we think our friends, neighbors, coworkers, or classmates would like best and consider cool. For others it’s worldly success – money, power, or fame. For still others it’s popular culture, achievement, selfish ambition, the words of some guru, or the avoidance of pain or difficulty. For so many, it’s our feelings. We make decisions based on whatever we feel will make us happy in the moment. And maybe we use all of the plumb lines listed above at various times whenever it’s convenient to justify doing whatever we feel like. Think about your life and your choices over the last year. What have you been using as a guide?

The truth is that none of those things is a working plumb line. Every one of them will align you with something that is far less than God’s design and plan and call for your life. In 2014 I challenge you to use God’s Word as your plumb line. Let the Bible be your guide and your standard in the decisions that you make, even in the moments where it conflicts with what you want to do and it’s uncomfortable for you. Every good contractor knows that if you trust your eye over the plumb line you’ll end up with serious problems. In the same way, if you trust your feelings over God’s Word you’ll end up with a heart, mind, and life that is aligned with something other than him.

LIVE: Today, make a New Years resolution to live with Scripture as your plumb line in 2014. Suggestion: Go find some sort of small object – an old key, a weight, a pendant, or anything else with a little weight to it – and tie a string to it. Place your newly constructed plumb line somewhere where you will see it often over the course of the next year and be reminded that God has given us an incredible gift in his self-revealing Word which allows us to line up our lives with him and be the people he called us to be.

PRAY: Admit to God that you’ve used insufficient standards to guide your decision making in the past. Ask him to help you line up your life with him in the coming year.

READ: Amos 3-4

THINK: On December 21, 1937 Winston Churchill stood up to address the House of Commons regarding the daunting prospect of armed conflict with Adolf Hitler’s increasing antagonistic Nazi Germany. Churchill realized that England would struggle mightily to defeat the powerful German forces but also that England had the greater and nobler cause to fight for. He remarked, “Moral force is, unhappily, no substitute for armed force, but it is a very great reinforcement.” Churchill understood that fighting for what is right equips the army – and the entire society – to fight better and harder and more valiantly. He also understood that power divorced from morality results in disaster.

Power divorced from morality results in disaster. It was worth repeating because it is a mighty reality of our world. It is precisely the situation in which many Israelites found themselves in the days of Amos. They were wealthy and healthy. Things seemed to be going great for them. From a worldly perspective they were quite successful. But they turned their backs on God. They decided that they simply didn’t need him and refused to return to him. Their power and success existed without the reinforcement of moral force and relationship with God.

So how did it turn out? Disastrously. They used their power to exploit the poor and be radically self-indulgent. And God did not mince words with them at all. In Chapter 3 verse 15 he says, “I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished.” That’s a tough one for many of us in America – God declaring that he’ll tear down the vacation homes and cabins we build while those around us go in need.  And then Amos even gets in on the act and says in chapter 4 verse 1, “Listen up you cows of Bashan!” Which is basically his way of saying “you fat old ladies, you walking selfish appetites” And God follows that by telling them that he’s sick of their worship cause it isn’t real. In Amos 4:4 he says “Go to Bethel and sin.” Bethel means “house of God.” It was the holiest place in Israel. And God sarcastically requests that the people just go ahead and sin there.

God looked down on a nation whose morality was divorced from their everyday lives. They had incredible economic and social power. But instead of using it to show love and draw people towards God by providing for their needs and welcoming them, they used their power to exploit, manipulate, and abuse the poor, the powerless, and the needy for their own gain. And God angrily promised their destruction and told them to prepare to meet him. Because God stands with the least and the lost. He cares about every human being because every human being is made in his image and found worthy of dying for upon a cross. And God’s heart breaks to the point where he finds it intolerable when those who would claim to be his people use their power to indulge themselves while ignoring or exploiting those around them who are in need.

ASK: How have I – explicitly or implicitly, knowingly or unknowingly – exploited those around me because of my position in society and my relative affluence? How have I indulged myself instead of looking around me to the needs of others? How can I stand with the least and the lost today?

PRAY: Start with a time of confession. Ask God to soften your heart. Commit yourself to turning back to him, and pray that he will help you always use whatever power, resources, or ability you have for his Kingdom and his glory rather than your own.

READ: Deuteronomy 13-14

THINK: This section can be both troubling and confusing. There are laws about putting to death those who would entice God’s people to turn astray and laws about how it’s okay to eat beef but not okay to eat pork. And it’s easy to read this – at least if you are anything like me – and wonder, “What is God doing here? Why do these laws seem so harsh and so arbitrary?”

Holiness. That’s what God is doing here. Why so harsh? Holiness matters more than we can possibly fathom with our sinful minds. Why seemingly arbitrary? Holiness is about being set apart. It means being different. It means standing out and being like God in the midst of a world that looks nothing like him. That is the big idea of this section of the Law in Deuteronomy.

It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of passages like this – and far too many people fall victim and do so. They read these chapters and then come away feeling and acting judgmental towards anyone who has tattoos or likes bacon. But that really isn’t the point here. God is doing something really unique in this book. He is teaching a people how to live set apart for him in the midst of a pagan world so that they can be lights to that world that draw it towards him.

And his commands aren’t designed to be oppressive or frustrating. They aren’t there to trip Israel up. They aren’t designed to be an onerous system of boxes to check to be good enough. In fact, this passage indicates the opposite! It requires tithing. But encourages the people to feast on their own tithes at the appropriate time. The tithe isn’t about making yourself poor or going hungry. It is about passionately celebrating what God has provided. And the food laws and laws about marking your body or shaving your head were set up specifically to help God’s people be set apart and easily identifiable as his.

Israel, by following the law, stood out in contrast to the pagans around them who did these things in order to somehow win the favor of the gods. But this God is about grace. Not performance. And so is the Law! So are all of his commands today. They are about living the way we were designed to live and being set apart from the sinful brokenness of this world so that we can shine his light in the darkness and – by the testimony of the unique and different lives we live – draw people towards him.

The question we have to ask is: are we doing that? Are we living holy lives set apart to God which shine so brightly in the world around us that people cannot help but be compelled to find out more about him? That ought to be what defines us. This is and has always been God’s vision for his people in the world. Often, though, this isn’t what defines us.

Most of the time we get so caught up in chasing the world that our lives don’t look different enough for anyone to notice. And when we do – and by “we” I mean the broader American evangelical Church – take a stand for holiness it is all to often by rallying around the coercive power of the state and attempting to vote into law some restriction on a sin we don’t collectively struggle with in order to help “them” be better people. That isn’t at all to say we our faith and politics shouldn’t intersect. But it is a suggestion that we might win far more to the Kingdom if we focus on living lives of radical holiness, set apart from the darkness and practices of our world, that so powerfully reflect our God to everyone around us that people are compelled to learn more about him.

PRAY: Ask God to help you be set apart. Ask him to reveal to you the parts of your life that look more like the world than like him and to help you overcome your struggles there. Offer yourself and your life up to God today and ask him to make you holy and use your life to draw people to himself.