Living in the Spirit
July 18, 2016

Scripture Reading: Hosea 1:2-10

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

 And the Lord said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.’ Hosea 1:2-5

It seems that the prophets view the problems of the world as symptoms of a spiritual vacuum in the lives of God’s people. Such a vacuum often results from our shaping our religion to worship a God made in our image. We pick and choose ways of being that fit us comfortably as God’s ways and what others do as being outside of God’s spectrum.

I hate the ads on TV that illustrate someone eating a favorite food to excess that routinely makes them sick and then taking the magic elixir being advertised that relieves the resulting pain. Isn’t that sometimes how we treat our religion?

The way we live and the way we love makes a difference. We create most of our problems, and we are capable of creating solutions. It does require us to be intentional about our relationship with God learning from Christ’s example what God’s love is all about, and trusting God’s mercy to show us a better way. It does require us to take the beam out of our own eyes and let Jesus handle any judgment on others.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we fail to meet our obligations not only to love ourselves but to love all your children. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.