Hosea 1-3
On Sundays there will be no written devotional as the reading for that day also serves as the sermon text for Shades Valley Community Church. If you would like to listen to this morning’s sermon on Hosea 1-3 you may do so by clicking here.
Deuteronomy 7:6-13 (click here)
It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. (Deuteronomy 7:7-10)
Reflection
What assurance do you have that God loves you? What makes you think that God will keep on loving you day after day?
I know that my own heart is so fickle and prone to wander… prone to forget… just like the people of Israel in the Old Testament. God’s people were always forgetting, always wandering away from him. What assurance could they possibly have that he would continue to love them day after day… failure after failure?
Deuteronomy 7:7-8, “It was not because YOU were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers…”
The people’s assurance of God’s love was not rooted in how lovely or faithful they were… it was and is rooted in the greatness of God’s own love and faithfulness! My assurance that God loves me and will continue to love me has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with him and the kind of God he is!
That is amazing Gospel good news!… but then you keep reading in Deuteronomy 7 and it seems like everything I’ve just said… everything God has just said seemingly comes unraveled by what he says next.
Deuteronomy 7:9, “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments…”
Wait! So God’s faithfulness depends on my commandment keeping? I’m doomed!
Again and again in the Old Testament, we see these twin truths set side by side… God is loving and faithful towards his people… AND… he is just towards all who sin. How can both of those things be true? My hope hinges on how this is possible!
My hope… our hope… hinges on Christ!
Christ faithfully kept the commandments of God… and on the cross, he took on our unfaithfulness and gave us his faithfulness!
Through the cross, our assurance is made complete! God has shown himself to be the great-loving-faithful God by taking on flesh and keeping our side of the covenant as well as his own! And now HE is at work by HIS power transforming us into an a people who are actually faithful!
Again we arrive at the answer that our assurance that God loves us and will continue to love us has nothing to do with us, but everything to do with him and the kind of God he is!
Turn to him… trust in him… not in yourself! There is no assurance to be found in our fickle, wandering hearts! There is full and final assurance to be found in the eternally faithful heart of God!
*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.
Leviticus 26:40-45 (click here)
…if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me…
…then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham… (Leviticus 26:40 and 42)
Reflection
Do Christians need to practice confession? Is there a place for repentance in the Christian life?
When we read a passage like Leviticus 26:40-45, I think it is easy for us to dismiss it as something belonging to the Old Covenant that has no application for us today. I mean, God is warning his people about what will happen to them if they forsake him… the wrath they will endure unless they repent and return.
But as Christians… hasn’t Christ borne the wrath we deserved upon himself on the cross? Isn’t all of our sin covered? When we initially repented and trusted in Jesus… didn’t that take care of all our sin past, present and future?
The answer to all of those questions and a resounding YES!
So why would we ever need to confess or repent of sin again if “it is finished”?
Scripture’s response to this query is to declare that yes… we have a permanent union with the triune God through the cross of Christ… AND we also experience a daily, dynamic communion with the triune God that is not static!
In other words, when we sin as Christians our union with God is not affected. He is still our father and we are still his children, but we absolutely experience a break in communion! It is through repentance, turning again from our sin back to communion with Christ, that our communion is restored and we experience what Christ achieved on the cross in real time!
Jesus himself calls Christians to experience this restoration of communion through repentance in Revelation 3:19-20, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Jesus is speaking to Christians who have “shut him out” through their sin. They are not communing together… and he calls them to repent… to turn back to him!
Paul calls Christians to repent (2 Corinthians 7:9-10), James calls them to repent (James 5:16), John calls them to repent (1 John 1:9), and on and on…
Repentance and faith are the inhale and exhale of the Christian life! I live turning from sin and self to Christ!
So be encouraged today, Christian! Repentance is not a call to beat yourself and wallow in guilt and shame… no… it is a call of hope! It is a call to turn back to your first love and experience his embrace of grace again and again! It is a call to experience true life in Christ!
Paul’s call of repentance to the Corinthians Christians says it best. 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, “…I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.
The Joy of Glory 