É
Look at Hosea
6:11b-7:1. What does God want to do?
É
Look at verse
13. What else does God want to do?
God wants to
restore them, heal them, redeem them, but according to verses 10 & 11 they don’t
even try to find God and instead call to Egypt and turn to Assyria. Two places where they have been burned in the
past, instead of turning to the only one who has ever had their best interests
in mind. Sound familiar?
While I don’t think we love wickedness or necessarily delight in sin, I do think we often turn to sources other than God. Do you think our reliance on other things instead of God has anything to do with a lack of belief? I know we believe, but do we really believe…believe everything God says He is and says He can do? I often rationalize that yes, I really believe, but I know God’s will and my will in a circumstance may not always be the same (even though I do realize that God’s will is perfect ). But if I really peel back my thoughts, is that really it? Do I really believe…enough to put my full hope and trust and confidence in God alone and not in other people or things?
É
On
a scale of 1 to 10, where do you think you are in terms of thinking you believe
and knowing you believe? Any thoughts on
where you put yourself?
Jennie Allen writes:
The ironic thing
about believing in God and supernatural things is that the invisible stuff is
actually the most trustworthy, the most stable.
So the concrete things we can see and touch, they become the wind, they
become the things we try to catch, and over and over, they pass through our
fingers and souls, keeping us empty. But
when I take my empty self to God, he feels familiar and stable and more like
concrete than wind. 6
Read Mark 9:17-29. I love this
story, in particularly verse 24…
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears,
“Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
(Mark 9:24)
I echo this prayer often. It is freeing to know that in addition to going to God with our praises and prayer requests, we can go to him with our struggles of unbelief. And it goes beyond just belief issues…I pray also for help wanting the things I know I should want…”God, help me want to know you better, help me want a relationship with you over everything else in my life, help me want to put my faith in you, help me want your will over my own.”
É
What
are some “wants” in your life that you want God to change? What does Jesus say at the end of the story in
Mark 9:29 that is sometimes required?
Verse 2 of
our Hosea reading says that God sees all their sins. They engulf Him and are always before Him.
É
Read Jeremiah
31:34. What will God do with their
sins? Why will He do this?
It is
knowledge again. He will “forgive their
wickedness and remember their sins no more” because they will KNOW HIM.
Many of us may have walked closely with God at one time and have found ourselves drifting. Maybe something happened or we just got consumed with the daily grind. Wherever we are God never stops loving us and doesn’t give up on us. Whatever our choices or circumstances are or have been, God wants us to come back to Him. He is longing to fully restore us. It is up to us to accept this truth and promise and humbly come back to Him.
É
Does this
resonate at all with you? Have you had
seasons of closeness followed by seasons of drifting? Where would you put yourself now?
Oh Heavenly
Father, help us know you. Help our
unbelief. Help us want to see the areas
in our lives and the actions in our lives that are keeping us from this
knowledge. No matter how hard it may be,
bring us to the point of placing those things in their proper perspective and
turning to you in love.
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