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He Loves You Still (Part 1)

Based on Hosea Chapter 1 -2 (Mostly 2)

The book of Hosea opens up with God speaking to Israel through his servant Hosea. He commands Hosea to go and marry Gomer, a prostitute. Wild, yea I know, but it gets better. Go then tells Hosea that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This was to illustrate how Israel was acting like a prostitute and worshipping other gods, mainly baal (not capitalized on purpose).

Hosea marries Gomer and they have three children. Gomer is still promiscuous during this time. All the names of their children were given to Hosea directly from God. This speaks to the true love and heart of God that when he names something, he gives it identity and purpose. That purpose may take time to manifest but it will come to pass. God says to call the first son “Jezreel,” because God was going to punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel and “put an end to the kingdom of Israel.” Let me just say that, this name appears to have nothing to do with the baby. Hosea and Gomer conceive again and give birth to a daughter and the Lord told Hosea to “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”).” God said that he would no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them. I need to know Hosea’s reactions to these names and their meanings. However, I’m assuming he had no problems or issues with the names otherwise it would’ve been recorded. Hosea and Gomer have a second son who the Lord said to call “Lo-Ammi (not my people), for Israel is not my people and I am not their God.” 🙃😮 At the end of chapter one God tells Hosea that Judah and Israel will reunite and He will restore Himself to His people. This was an interesting time for God to make a promise.

Chapter 2 is where it goes down. Seriously, stop right now and go read Hosea 2:1-8, this will help as you keep reading this post. COME BACK after you finish! God starts likening the people of Israel to an unfaithful wife. Hosea can understand and relate to these words from God because he is literally a living example. God begins to admonish the people of Israel for turning their back on Him and turning to other gods. Here we see the true love and faithfulness of God, even when His people don’t reciprocate that love. He continued to bless them. Israel was consumed by the “good” they thought they were getting while in their sin. They couldn’t even see that the pleasure from their sin was void and empty. This is how sin keeps us in a never ending cycle. We get full of our sin for a moment and then we’re left feeling empty and we run right back to that sin. The cycle continues until God in His faithful and unfailing love steps in.

As I’m reading, I’m asking myself “where is the love in this?” Then I get to verse 6, where God says He will block their path with with a wall of thorn bushes. Isn’t it amazing how God can love us so much when we aren’t even thinking about Him. He loves us so much that he would put thorn bushes on the side of our path to keep us on the right path and deter us from getting on the wrong one. When we steer off the path towards God and encounter those thorn bushes they hurt and the enemy will try distract us and get us to blame God for trying to hurt us. When actually, it’s God’s love trying to get our attention and let us know we are going the wrong way. Not following God comes with scars, the good thing about scars is that they do heal. Praise God for the thorn bushes in our lives!

God continues on in his infinite wisdom and love about not allowing her (Israel) to catch the lovers (other gods) she runs after or searches for. Israel will then realize that “I might as well return to my first husband (God), for I was better off with Him than I am now.” God will eventually expose the emptiness and weakness of the things we put before Him. This was symbolic of Israel returning to God after understanding the blessing they thought was coming from baal, was actually from God all along. The whole time Israel was praising baal and giving sacrifices and gifts to it. God is so unselfish, kind and loving that He STILL provided for His people though they wanted nothing to do with Him. How many times do we take what God has blessed us with and give it to the god or thing we put before Him? How often do we disrespect our Heavenly Father by giving someone or something else the praise and glory for the provision He made? God’s love for us is truly unconditional. God used Hosea’s relationship with Gomer to mirror His love toward us.

When we misuse the gifts from God, He will sometimes take them away. Not to punish us for the sin we are in but He wants us to expose that sin or situation that we are putting before Him for what it really is, fake and deprived. He puts us in a “wilderness” so we can see that the source of the problem is where we are putting our focus and energy and that it was Him sustaining us all along, when we didn’t deserve it. I don’t know about you but this is where I start getting angry and upset with God. “Why did you leave me?” “God it’s your fault I’m in this mess because you left me here?” The problem isn’t that God left, the problem is that I made decisions and put other things before Him and He let me see how much I can actually trust them.

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Think about the things in our daily lives we put before God? What might happen if God were to expose those things by removing His favor or blessings?

Ask God to help you identify those things we have in His place. Be ready for some changes in your life when you pray this prayer. It’s going to get real uncomfortable.

Stay Tuned for part 2…

Be Blessed

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STRIP | RUN | FOCUS | THINK

”Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.“

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭12‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

In Hebrews Chapter 12 verses 1 through 3 the writer compares our lives as Christians to a race. He addresses the crowd of “witnesses” that have run a similar race and were victorious and now cheering us on in our race. In these three verses he asks us who are reading to do 3 things.

1. Strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.”

What is that thing you know is wrong but it feels good. That sin you know you are virtually helpless against. Whenever it comes up, you pretty much know it will over take you. That sin is like a burden of weight on us or a rock we stumble over during the race. If you’re weighed down you can’t move very fast. IF you keep tripping, your destination will be hard to reach.

2. “Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

The word endurance can be swapped for perseverance. This concept simply speaks to the heart of a believer. The heart that says “I will not give up.” God has a plan and a race individual to each one of us. I can’t run your race and you can’t run mine. We have all been given the power of endurance and perseverance to run our race never giving up, no matter how many times we get weighed down or tripped up by our sin.

3. “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus”

The beautiful hymn Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus by Helen H. Lemuel addresses this perfectly. The chorus of the song says “Turn your eyes upon Jesus/Look full in his wonderful face/ and the things of earth will grow strangely dim/in the light of His glory and grace. Keeping our eyes on Jesus prevents us from being distracted during our race. Jesus is the example of how to run your race and the goal, to be like Him who was the perfect example of how to live out faith. There are many of examples in the Bible and in our own networks of people who took their eyes off of Jesus and the results of that focus. So many things in this world are demanding our attention, where do you choose to focus? How has the result of where you focus impacted your race?

4. “Think of all the hostility He endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.”

Anything we can go through Jesus has defeated. He took on the worst of everything this world had to offer including death and conquered the grave too. Thinking of all Jesus endured should give us hope and encourage us that we can and will finish our race.

Run you race!

Be Blessed!

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I sought the Lord and He heard and he Answered!

Jesus while on this earth was in constant communication with His Father. At all times His heart was focused on Him. Every burden, every thought of joy and worry was made known to the Father. Jesus in His humanity, even with the holiest of backgrounds was giving us an example of how we should act. Our savior was making it known to us that we can speak to Father about anything at anytime. He was showing us the importance of prayer.

Prayer is given to us by God so that we may communicate with Him at every turn. His ear does not have a mute button or an off switch. He wants to hear from us. We can not worry God. At times we feel that our problems our a burden to God. There is nothing we cannot present to him through prayer.

Isn't it exciting and a blessing to know that the Creator and Savior of the world wants to hear from you?!

Continue to pray and keep praying. One thing we can't forget is to be examples of what we have asked of God. If I ask God to forgive me for something I have done and I am an unforgiving person, should I expect God to answer my request?

Prayer is powerful! Prayer makes us closer to the Father. Pray today! He can hear you!

Be Blessed!

Proverbs 15:29

Psalm 88:2

Daniel 9:3

Job 22:27

Luke 6:12

John 9:31

Psalm 116:2

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Watch Ya Mouth!

James 3:1-12 is all about controlling our tongue. In fact, he refers to it as taming the tongue. The word tame or taming is an interesting choice of words. Normally, when we hear or use the word tame we are talking about a wild animal that needs to be controlled.

In this section of James 3, James uses some interesting subjects when speaking about the power, control, and instability our tongue can have if it’s not tamed. Verses 3 & 4 compare it to the bits in the mouth of a horse and a small rudder that controls the direction of a ship. But then in Verse 5-6 he talks about the impact of fire and how the tongue is also a fire. this is when it got real for me.

It’s no coincidence that James calls the tongue a fire. Fire destroys things. No matter how much you repair, clean it, or replace the items you can tell there was a fire. There will still be a smell of smoke, burn marks, or that item might not function like it did in its original form. When the fire from the tongue comes out it does the same thing to those on the receiving end of our words. The receivers of our words could be people we love, our coworkers, a telemarketer on the phone, or even ourselves. What James is trying to get us to realize is that our tongue has power and our human ability is not enough to control it. We must call on the Lord to control what we say.

Today is the day we start putting our trust in God to control our tongues. A tongue that is not tamed by God can not be used for Him. As James, says in verse 9, we praise God and curse humans when left on our own to control our tongue. Think about all the times you’ve said something and wanted to take it back but the damage had already been done. God is the only way to control what we say!

Be Blessed!

[beblessed]

Walk It Out: The Life of a Believer

The word of God brings us to salvation and shows us how we should live our new life in Jesus Christ. What I love so much about God is that He gives us choices. He presents us with “good and perfect” gifts but still gives us space to choose. Choosing to follow Christ and live His way is not always easy. Following the word of God is in direct contrast of how the world says we should be living. This places extra importance on the study and knowledge of the scriptures.

Walking out our lives in Christ is a daily constant series of making decisions. These decisions almost always bring up another question in the mind of a believer and it’s usually something like “what does God say I should do?” As we grow in our relationship with Jesus, certain things get harder to make decisions on. This happens because our flesh is fighting to stay alive. The Apostle Paul constantly refers to this fight throughout his writings in the New Testament (1 Cor. 15, Romans 8), saying that he dies daily to his flesh. Jesus even commands us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him (Luke 9).

If we are going to follow Jesus, we have to get out of the way. We have to give up our desires and submit to the will of God. I’ve learned that submission is not always fun or even what I want to do. It is a consistent acknowledgment that His ways are better than my ways and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts. True submission comes down to faith and trust.

James gives us some straight to the point instructions on how we as believers should live out our faith and trust in Jesus. Read the book of James and what it says about walking in faith. It’s not for the faint of heart. James Chapter 1 verses 19-26 really spoke to me. In Verse 19 & 20, it says that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. The world tells us to curse out the person that cut us off on the freeway. Anger in partnership with humanity doesn’t produce the righteousness that God asks us to walk in.

Verse 21, tells us to “get rid of all moral filth and evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planed in you, which can save you.” When I read this I instantly thought, “can you be more specific?” My flesh saw the attack coming. My mind then went to Paul’s writings in Romans 7, when he talks about wanting to do good and recognizing the sin that is in him making decisions. It’s like those candy commercials where something bad happens to character and then something good happens. OK, James, I got it, get rid of evil and moral filth…then he says humbly accept the word planted in you. This comforted me in knowing that study and knowledge of God’s word is so important to walking out our life as a believer.

Verse 22-25 commands us to not only listen to the word of God but also do what it says. In verse 22, he slides in the phrase “and so deceive yourselves.” He adds this because by only listening to the word we can convince ourselves that we have faith, that we are following God. God even responds in action to our faith. Look no further than the miracles Jesus was able to perform because people had faith. Remember that situation you asked God to move in and He made a way. Deceiving ourselves sometimes causes us to think that by just showing up at church for a couple of hours every week “it’s all good.” Whatever you put into your heart is going to come out. This is why David in Psalms 119 says “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Following God requires action. Living by the word of God offers freedom and with doing what the word says also comes blessings.

In verse 26, he’s basically saying “Watch your mouth.” James didn’t live in 2024 where people feel like they have license to say whatever they want to you and call it “living their truth” or “that’s just who I am.” The blessing for us is that God didn’t call us believers to just be who we are, He’s called us to be what He wants us to be.

Today’s challenge is to recognize the areas in our lives where our flesh is fighting our faith. Ask God, for his grace and mercy to fight and overcome those battles. Using our battle plan, the word of God, we will win! Walking out our life as believers is going to come with it’s daily challenges but we have access to the one who has already given us the victory, his name is Jesus Christ. I pray that we all become closer to Him today and our lives bring Him the glory He is due!

Be Blessed!

[beblessed]

Belief, Fear & Faith

These three simple, yet powerful words can sometimes help us put our walk with Christ into perspective. When you meditate on each one for what it is and how they show up in your life, you quickly realize where they can put limits on our trust in God. Let’s take a look at each one.

Belief is defined as “an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.” It is also defined as “trust, faith or confidence in someone or something.” As followers of Christ our belief is paramount and supports the fact that we proclaim ourselves as Christians. Belief can be sticky. Belief for a believer can sometimes be crippling. As Christians, we can believe in Jesus, we can even believe the words He’s spoken to us through the Holy Spirit and believe the plan and purpose He has for our lives. Having that belief is amazing and we should believe, but that doesn’t mean we will respond to the word’s that were spoken in our life or follow the plan that He’s laid out for us.

Fear is dangerous. It is a lack of evidence. Fear does require movement but in any direction but in the direction of progress. Fear can stifle our belief. Fear brings doubt and causes confusion. Fear also considers the outcomes of situations. “What if the word God spoke over my life is true?” “What will actually happen if I do what God has called me to do?” Fear causes us to focus on the unknown and develop an unhealthy consideration of our past experiences. Following Christ doesn’t mean we will always know the next step or the outcome. We may not even be told what happens after we do the first thing He’s asked us to do. There are countless stories in the scriptures that indicate how much fear can have a hold on you.

Faith is a decision in your mind but it’s the heart that puts it into action. Faith requires action. Faith simply equates to blind trust. That initial step in faith is hard. To truly exhibit faith in Jesus our focus must be on Him and not what’s in front of us. Peter could walk on water as long as his focus was on Jesus. The moment he took his attention away from Jesus and put it on his situation he bang to sink. The enemy’s whole strategy is to deter our attention away from Christ and get us to turn that molehill in front of us into a mountain, forgetting the victory to overcome we have in Jesus Christ.

Our belief in Jesus Christ informs our faith. Faith is the action on which we display our beliefs in real time. We can believe and not have faith. I submit to you that you can’t have true faith without belief. Fear that’s just a tactic of the enemy to get us away from the presence of God. Our goal should be to build our belief and faith in Jesus Christ. The more we exhibit our faith the stronger it grows. This is how we can say with full confidence “You did it before, I know you can do it again.” “I followed your word last time and look at how it turned out. I will follow you again.”

Today, think about the things we blindly put our faith in everyday, chairs, cars, people, etc… That’s comfortable for us because we built up that faith over time. Whenever you see a chair that appears to be in tact we automatically assume that it will hold us up because we’ve been sitting in chairs our whole lives. It doesn’t matter what type of chair, where the chair is or even where it came from. Our challenge today is to identify a way to grow “chair” like faith in Jesus!

Be Blessed!