Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


Stealing and Adultery
Attention all Israelites! GOD'S Message! GOD indicts the whole population:
"No one is faithful. No one loves. No one knows the first thing about God.
All this cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex, sheer anarchy, one murder after another!
And because of all this, the very land itself weeps and everything in it is grief-stricken—animals in the fields and birds on the wing, even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless.
"But don't look for someone to blame. No finger pointing!
You, priest, are the one in the dock.
You stumble around in broad daylight,
And then the prophets take over and stumble all night. Your mother is as bad as you.
My people are mined because they don't know what's right or true.
Because you've turned your back on knowledge, I've turned my back on you priests.
Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God, I'm no longer recognizing your children." - Hosea 4:1-6 MSG

How can you have a relationship with someone you don't even know? If you don't love other people, then you don't love God—and vice versa. Not loving people results in all the crimes God listed in this passage. The crimes were merely symptoms of the underlying disease: an unfaithful and unloving heart.

Hosea prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel, which corresponded to the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in Judah. It was a prosperous time for the two kingdoms. Those who were in positions of leadership—particularly those tasked with the responsibility of teaching, had failed to live up to their calling. Priests and prophets had turned their back on God's revelation to his people. They did not concern themselves with what God had told them. They ignored the scripture and had no idea they mistreated the people around them. And they had no idea who God was, what he cared about, or what mattered to him.

What we know is what we will live. It is impossible for us to worship God in spirit and in truth if we know nothing about the one whom we claim to be worshipping. The religious establishment in Hosea's day had forgotten whom they were worshipping, and they imagined it didn't matter. They imagined that only enthusiasm, sincerity, and rituals counted. But what we know does matter. True worship is impossible without knowledge about the one being worshipped.