In the story of the Old Testament prophet Hosea, God told him to marry a prostitute named Gomer to teach a lesson about idolatry, but also about God’s steadfast love and mercy. Gomer was not only a prostitute physically, but also spiritually, worshipping other gods, which isn’t limited to literal, physical idols. Hosea 2:8-9 explains that idolatry includes giving credit to other gods (or no gods) for things that the LORD had actually provided. God said through Hosea:
“And [Gomer] did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.”
In other words, if Gomer (who represents all of Israel) doesn’t recognize the true source of her blessings, God is fully justified in taking them away. Fortunately, He is a God of love and mercy, who provides for our nakedness – both physical and spiritual, beginning all the way back in Genesis 3:21, which says: “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Adam and Eve had fallen and became ashamed of their condition, expecting God to judge them, but instead He covered them physically, and also set in place a plan to redeem His people by the blood of Jesus.
In Gomers case, “And the LORD said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.” (Hosea 3:1-2)
Fifteen shekels was not a lot of money, meaning other people didn’t value Gomer much, but God and Hosea were faithful and loved her. The real price of God’s people – His own Son – was much steeper, but He decided we’re worth it even though we are unfaithful. It is His faithfulness that really matters.
Therefore, today be thankful! For the One who gives us “the grain, the wine, and the oil” and the “silver and gold” is the same One who died for us to make us His own people.
Today’s post is a response to a writing prompt: “What gives you direction in life?” The short answer to the question is a who, not a what: God. Without a meaningful origin and destiny that comes from having a loving Creator and Lord, I’m not sure where I would find direction.
The longer answer is that God’s communication to us through the Bible provides direction for both life and for this blog. Here, I write what I need to hear. I write about things I learn about the direction my life should go, and I share it with my readers. So, my longer answer to this writing prompt are some key verses and themes that guide both my life and my writing. Although I routinely fail to live up to them, they provide a good and meaningful direction.
The first verse is Hebrews 10:24, which says: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works”. Christianity should be lived, not just known or believed. So, how do I stir up myself and others to loving action? We can’t do it without knowing that’s the goal and by consistent meditation on it. We should ask ourselves what tools, gifts and resources we have to help others grow in “love and good works.” For me, this blog is one of those tools. For others, they could approach this very differently. We all have our own directions, but similar goals.
The second verse is Ephesians 2:10. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” We are not created and saved just to do whatever we want, but God has plans for each of us. He puts work to do in front of us, for the good of us and those around us, and for His glory. Nothing is an accident. He made us each for a reason.
Next comes Philippians 1:6. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” We all fail so often; therefore, we need reminders that God isn’t done with us, and will never give up on us. He didn’t die for us just to leave us hanging and alone. His purpose is to make us perfectly loving people, like Jesus was, and His work will certainly be completed in eternity. Thank Him for this!
Jeremiah 29:7 is another important guiding verse. “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Which world was Jesus referring to in John 3:16 when He said, “God so loved the world”? There’s only one world, the one we all live in, and He wants us to work for the good of that world. Imagine if Jesus had taken the attitude that this world is hopelessly lost in its sin. He would have never came to die for it, and we would all be lost forever. Likewise, we can’t give up on the world around us, especially our nearest neighbors.
And finally, Matthew 22:37-40. “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” In my opinion, Christians don’t talk enough about love, and we don’t put enough thought and effort into how to do it. Many Christians even have trouble defining what love is. For more on that, read this article I wrote a while back. Without Christ, we are all God’s enemies, so if He didn’t love His enemies we could never be His neighbors. Only by living a life entirely guided by love for God and our neighbor, even if they are our enemy, can we live the life God intended us to live.
So, what gives me direction in life? Trying to understand and live by what God wants of me. These verses are only the beginning, but they’re verses that mean a lot to me.
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah lived in a time full of false prophets, where the true word of God was rarely heard. It was also a time where idolatry and sin ran wild among the people of Judah, Jeremiah’s audience, a nation headed for destruction by Babylon, God’s chosen agent to discipline them. Yet the false prophets told the people: “You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you assured peace in this place.’”[1] Later, “They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”[2]
These false prophets were essentially telling the people they can do whatever they want, so they don’t need a savior since God was not going to judge them. The false prophets also said that the people don’t need God as Lord, since there would be no negative consequences no matter what they chose to do.
Jeremiah fearlessly confronts these prophets and worked hard to get the people to take him seriously. At one point, God tells Jeremiah to proclaim: “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away?”[3] With this question, the LORD lets the people know that they can’t just set him aside as if He doesn’t exist. While God is a God of love, He is also a God of justice, and sin will not be ignored.
Both the Old and New Testaments warn that those who ignore God can infect the broader population. In Deuteronomy 29:18-19, Moses wrote: “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.” [emphasis mine]. The whole church, the “moist and dry alike” can suffer from the influence of members who cast God aside as irrelevant or inconvenient. People who stubbornly insist on their own way.
The New Testament picks up the “root” image from Deuteronomy in Hebrews 12:15 – “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled”. This verse is in the context of God’s discipline, of understanding that when He judges His own people, it is not a final judgement, but one that is meant to refine them and make them holy. But it is also a reminder that we need to accept God as Lord, by His grace, in order for Him to be our Savior.
Like the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day, modern preachers can also teach that we don’t need Jesus as Lord and Savior. Some of them declare that we are free to do whatever we want because He is a God of love and therefore will never judge us no matter what. These ministers fail to see God’s loving, disciplining hand in our difficulties, feeding the “root of bitterness”.
Other preachers declare that God is a God of love, and therefore if we follow Him, we will be showered with blessings. These ministers see suffering not as discipline, but as a failure on our part to love God, thus making God’s love conditional. This also feeds the “root of bitterness” because there is no way we can meet God’s standard. We will always fall short and without grace all we can experience is frustration. There will never be enough material blessing to keep us satisfied under this theology.
However, we do need Jesus as Savior, and we do need Jesus as Lord, and we also have Jesus as Savior and Lord. We need to live like God is “at hand” and not “far away.” R.C. Sproul used to say Christians need to live “coram Deo” which means “before the face of God” in Latin. Always knowing that we live in God’s presence, that He is “at hand” reminds us not only of our need for Him as Lord and Savior, but also that He more than meets our need because He is a perfect Lord and Savior.
So, when Jeremiah tells us that God asks, “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away?” we can reply that we know we always live coram Deo because He is near. Only then can we pull up bitterness by its roots and experience true joy in His presence.
Mahatma Gandhi apparently said this: “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Unfortunately, sometimes I think he had a point. For example, someone I know with diabetes was told by members of their church that it happened because he was such a sinner. What? It’s shameful that church members would treat the unfortunate this way, but it happens, and it is one of the most inappropriate and discouraging things I can imagine.
In this post, I’ll share 2 examples from the Gospels that show Jesus would never speak, or even think, this way. In fact, His attitude was almost the exact opposite.
The first story comes from John 9:1-7, which says:
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.”
This example is relevant to my story about the diabetic because the disciples in the story are making the same connection between a person’s specific sin and their specific illness that the people talking about the diabetic made. Jesus gave a surprising answer to why the man was born blind – to glorify God by showing His healing power. Although people are too often hasty to assign blame, Jesus’ answer shows that there’s an alternative to drawing a straight line from specific sins to specific problems. And interestingly, the answer could apply to any disabled or sick person: all sicknesses will be gone in paradise, and God will be glorified by all of it. Illness is not evidence of sin; there could be other causes.
Another story comes from Luke 13:1-5, which says:
“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.””
In this story, Jesus is questioning the assumption that very bad things happen to very bad people, and that if something very bad happens to you, you must be a very bad person. The lesson Jesus is illustrating is that we should never think that the punishment of other sinners should be worse than the punishment we deserve ourselves. Put another way, if we think someone was punished with diabetes because of their sin, what makes someone think they don’t also deserve diabetes (or worse)?
As John Calvin wrote in his commentary on this story:
“This passage is highly useful, were it for no other reason than that this disease is almost natural to us, to be too rigorous and severe in judging of others, and too much disposed to flatter our own faults. The consequence is, that we not only censure with excessive severity the offenses of our brethren; but whenever they meet with any calamity, we condemn them as wicked and reprobate persons.”
Or as the late pastor and author James Boice said about the story:
“We are asking the wrong question. We are saying, ‘God, how could you let this happen to them?’ When the real question should be, ‘God, why hasn’t it happened to me? Why am I still living, sinner that I am?’”
Whether a person suffers calamity or doesn’t isn’t because of anyone’s righteousness, and Jesus doesn’t offer us an explanation about why. He doesn’t have to. Instead, he said “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish”, and implied that one of the things to repent of is thinking that others are “worse sinners” than we are.
Some people who appear righteous end up suffering terribly in this world, while some who are flagrant sinners live prosperous lives. Which brings me to another quote by our Lord Jesus, from Matthew 9:12b-13.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus showed mercy to those who are sick, both physically and spiritually, and so should all of His people. Jesus went out of His way to seek and love the sick and the lost, and so should we.
The Apostle Paul wrote an amazing contrast in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, which says:
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
On the one hand, there are things that are transient, described as: outer, wasting away, light, momentary, affliction, and seen.
On the other hand, what is eternal is: inner, being renewed, weighty, glorious, beyond all comparison, and unseen.
These things are part of each of us, but what is eternal matters infinitely more than the other. Don’t confuse the two, or you may lose heart because Paul earlier assured us in verse 14 that “he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.” At that time, only what is eternal will remain.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 