“Their deeds do not permit them
to return to their God. A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not
acknowledge the Lord.” Hosea 5:4
Sin is like mildew stuck on the
tiles of your bathroom, the more you ignore it, the more it piles up and the
more it gets tougher to clean.
In verse 4, the heart is
described as having a “spirit of prostitution” which thwarts the need to bend down
before the Lord. Sin causes us to feel a lot of negative things and it clouds
our perspective towards God. It is not an uncommon incident in a believer’s
life when we have gone cold towards the Lord. Many times we have chosen a path
that we knew would lead us somewhere far from God even if we knew exactly how
it would make us feel. When we’ve felt completely dirty and exhausted
emotionally, we realize we had no other option but to turn back to God.
The book of Hosea teaches us to
evaluate ourselves and ask if we have acted like an adulterer or a prostitute before
the Lord. More than the way we behave in school or work, it’s the heart
condition that the Lord sees and knows. He knows how far we’ve turned away from
God and He knows when we deliberately choose Baal over Him. Constant sinning
hardens a person’s heart and spirit, making it difficult to go before the Lord.
When our conscience tugs us to go back to God, don’t wait, heed immediately
before you find yourself giving into sin habitually. True repentance not only
entails the spiritual, but also the emotional and the mental submission before
the Lord. Though we find it unbelievable that a Holy and Mighty God would
accept us back, we have nothing else to turn to other than His loving arms.
Application:
·
What would it take for you to feel that God
loves you and wants you back?
·
Why do you think you go back to constant
sinning?
·
What are some of the Baals in your life that you
think would satisfy you more than God? Can God be the source of that instead?
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