Hosea 12, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GOD CAN HEAL ANCIENT HURT

God moves us forward by healing our past!  Can he really?  Can God heal this ancient hurt in my heart?  Of course He can.  In fact, God cares about justice more than we do.  We’re reminded in Romans 12:17-19, “Never pay back evil for evil…never avenge yourselves.  Leave that to God, for He has said that He will repay those who deserve it.”

We fear the evildoer will slip into the night, unknown and unpunished.  Escape to Fiji and sip mai tais on the beach.  Not to worry.  Scripture says, “God will repay,” not “God might repay.”  God will execute justice on behalf of truth and fairness.  Unlike us, God never gives up on a person.  Never!  Long after we’ve moved on, God is still there– probing the conscience; stirring conviction; always orchestrating redemption.  Think you need to fix your enemies?  That’s God’s job.

Hosea 12

Ephraim feeds on the wind;
    he pursues the east wind all day
    and multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a treaty with Assyria
    and sends olive oil to Egypt.
2 The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah;
    he will punish Jacob[b] according to his ways
    and repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel;
    as a man he struggled with God.
4 He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
    he wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel
    and talked with him there—
5 the Lord God Almighty,
    the Lord is his name!
6 But you must return to your God;
    maintain love and justice,
    and wait for your God always.

7 The merchant uses dishonest scales
    and loves to defraud.
8 Ephraim boasts,
    “I am very rich; I have become wealthy.
With all my wealth they will not find in me
    any iniquity or sin.”

9 “I have been the Lord your God
    ever since you came out of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
    as in the days of your appointed festivals.
10 I spoke to the prophets,
    gave them many visions
    and told parables through them.”

11 Is Gilead wicked?
    Its people are worthless!
Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal?
    Their altars will be like piles of stones
    on a plowed field.
12 Jacob fled to the country of Aram[c];
    Israel served to get a wife,
    and to pay for her he tended sheep.
13 The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt,
    by a prophet he cared for him.
14 But Ephraim has aroused his bitter anger;
    his Lord will leave on him the guilt of his bloodshed
    and will repay him for his contempt.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Monday, July 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Proverbs 11:24–30

One person gives freely, yet gains even more;
    another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

25 A generous person will prosper;
    whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

26 People curse the one who hoards grain,
    but they pray God’s blessing on the one who is willing to sell.

27 Whoever seeks good finds favor,
    but evil comes to one who searches for it.

28 Those who trust in their riches will fall,
    but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.

29 Whoever brings ruin on their family will inherit only wind,
    and the fool will be servant to the wise.

30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,
    and the one who is wise saves lives.

Insight
The word thrive in Proverbs 11:28 is a translation of the Hebrew verb parach. It can mean “to break forth” as with a bud or blossom; or grow, spread, and spring up. “Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf.” This positive growth dynamic characterizes those who are rightly related to God (“the righteous”). We also see this word in Psalm 92: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God” (vv. 12–13).

A Flourishing Tree
Those who trust in their riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. Proverbs 11:28

I’ve always had a collector’s heart. As a kid, I collected stamps. Baseball cards. Comics. Now, as a parent, I see the same impulse in my kids. Sometimes I wonder, Do you really need another teddy bear?

Of course, it’s not about need. It’s about the allure of something new. Or sometimes the tantalizing draw of something old, something rare. Whatever captivates our imagination, we’re tempted to believe that if we only had “X,” our lives would be better. We’d be happy. Content.

Except those things never deliver the goods. Why? Because God created us to be filled by Him, not by the things that the world around us often insists will satisfy our longing hearts.  

This tension is hardly new. Proverbs contrasts two ways of life: a life spent pursuing riches versus a life grounded in loving God and giving generously. In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases Proverbs 11:28 like this: “A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump; a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree.”

What a picture! Two ways of life: one flourishing and fruitful, one hollow and barren. The world insists that material abundance equals “the good life.” In contrast, God invites us to be rooted in Him, to experience His goodness, and to flourish fruitfully. And as we’re shaped by our relationship with Him, God reshapes our hearts and desires, transforming us from the inside out. By:  Adam R. Holz

Reflect & Pray
When has an undue focus on material things become a major spiritual struggle for you? What helps you keep your desires in proper perspective?

Father, thank You for the good gifts You give. Help me to keep putting my trust in You rather than the stuff of this world.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 06, 2020
Visions Becoming Reality

The parched ground shall become a pool… —Isaiah 35:7

We always have a vision of something before it actually becomes real to us. When we realize that the vision is real, but is not yet real in us, Satan comes to us with his temptations, and we are inclined to say that there is no point in even trying to continue. Instead of the vision becoming real to us, we have entered into a valley of humiliation.

Life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And battered by the shocks of doom
To shape and use.

God gives us a vision, and then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of that vision. It is in the valley that so many of us give up and faint. Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. Just think of the enormous amount of free time God has! He is never in a hurry. Yet we are always in such a frantic hurry. While still in the light of the glory of the vision, we go right out to do things, but the vision is not yet real in us. God has to take us into the valley and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the point where He can trust us with the reality of the vision. Ever since God gave us the vision, He has been at work. He is getting us into the shape of the goal He has for us, and yet over and over again we try to escape from the Sculptor’s hand in an effort to batter ourselves into the shape of our own goal.

The vision that God gives is not some unattainable castle in the sky, but a vision of what God wants you to be down here. Allow the Potter to put you on His wheel and whirl you around as He desires. Then as surely as God is God, and you are you, you will turn out as an exact likeness of the vision. But don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had a vision from God, you may try as you will to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never allow it.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you.  My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R

Bible in a Year: Job 32-33; Acts 14

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 06, 2020
The Monster In Your Closet - #8736

When you're the parent of a little kid, you know that one of your great challenges could be getting that little one to sleep at night. When you are the little child, you know why it's hard to get to sleep at night. First, there's that prayer. You know, the one where your Mommy has you pray, "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep." OK, that's good so far. Then, "If I should die before I wake..." Wait a minute! Hold it! Not going to sleep! Who in the world put that line in that prayer? Then there's another reason little kids have a hard time getting to sleep. The monsters, you know the ones in the closet. Oh, I know we had them in my room, how about yours? See, parents never really seem to get it. But all of us kids knew that once the lights all went out, there was a really scary monster waiting in that closet. So, you lie there with your eyes wide open, afraid of what the monster might do if you fall asleep.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Monster In Your Closet."

Well, fortunately we've all grown up now. Huh? Right? And in a sense, there is still a monster in our closet that makes it very hard for us to be at peace. And this one is not imaginary. It is all too real; life's ultimate, inevitable reality. Our deep, nagging fear of that monster is actually expressed in the possibility raised in that childhood prayer, "If I should die before I wake..."

The monster of death actually comes out of the closet every time we have to go to a funeral. It comes really close to us when the person who died is like someone our age. It's not meant to be a morbid thing, but the reality is that one day it will be me in that casket and it will be you. And we know it. And the longer we live, the more quickly our years seem to slip away, right? One day the monster will catch every one of us. Beyond our last heartbeat is a lot of unknown and whatever it is, it's forever.

Of course, the only one who can really speak with total authority about death is God. He's the only One who knows what's on the other side. And in our word for today from the Word of God, there is some very good news about the monster - the monster that lurks in all of our futures. Hebrews 2:14 - "(Jesus) shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."

Wow! "Held in slavery by their fear of death." Now, we know it's inevitable. We don't know where it will take us. But we can. If you'll put your life in the hands of Jesus Christ, you can be liberated from the fear of death. Why? Because you'll know for sure that death for you is going to mean heaven forever. How can you know that? By having the only thing that could keep you out of God's heaven removed forever, and that is your sins. There is no way you can enter heaven with your sins. And there is no way they can be forgiven by anyone but the One who died to pay for those sins.

This same Bible chapter says that Jesus tasted "death for everyone," and that He made "atonement for the sins of the people." Your sins have been paid for. You don't ever have to pay for them if you give yourself to Him. And death will just be your graduation to eternal life in heaven. But if you've never totally trusted Jesus as your Savior from your sin, you have no hope of heaven.

So, I urge you, if you want to begin your relationship with Jesus, tell Him that now while you know you've got the opportunity. Don't risk your eternity by waiting. Tell Him today, "Jesus, I've been running my life. I resign. I'm yours because you died for me. You drive from here on."

A lot of people have found help in beginning this relationship by visiting our website. In fact, that's how we've set it up. I hope you go there today. It's ANewStory.com where your new story might begin.

That monster of death was put to death when Jesus died on the cross. And you can finally be free from the fear that haunts us all our lives until we meet Jesus. Until we know that if we die before we wake, we'll be in heaven forever with Him.