Scripture:

Hosea 3:1-2

Then the LORD said to me, “GO again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.   So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley.

“Relentless Love”

Hosea is a picture story given by God to the people who were at the time far from Him, lost, separate.   God demonstrates through the Prophet Hosea this relentless love.    It demonstrates Paul's depiction of God’s love in Romans 8:38-39:

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:38-39

The Love of God pursues us, even when we are far from Him; He is seeking to “REDEEM” us, to turn our hearts back to Him.   So whenever the enemy tries to convince you that you are alone or unloved, or forgotten, remember this: that He has never left you, never forsaken you, not even when you did, that His love “PURSUES.”

LOVE COSTS

There is a price for Love, and God paid the ultimate price for you and I to redeem us, His Son…  This is the second part of this picture story: that God’s love is “Redeeming” and that it came at a great price (John 3:16), the giving of His Son.

Our God-Shot today is that we are LOVED by God and His love is pursuing us, redeeming us, drawing us back to Him, that we would turn our whole hearts toward Him, in surrender, in completeness, that we would live our lives surrendered to His plan, His way, His love.

Lord, I pray for those who are lost, who with their lives have rejected you, who are wandering in the darkness, that you would redeem them from the pit, that you would turn their hearts back to you, in your great love, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

Scripture:

2 Chronicles 31:21

21 In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

What Prospers a Man/Woman of God?

Things were in a bad way when Hezekiah began his reign; his father Ahaz had turned God's people away, and as a result were scattered and in bad shape.  2 Kings 18:3 "And He did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done."   This verse reminds us that we don't have to repeat the patterns of the generations before us, we don't have to live in the curse of those who went before us that did not serve the Lord, Hezekiah was set on serving the Lord, being different, set apart, so much so that he calls David his father, and Hezekiah would have been a 12-generation grandson to David.

What prospered Hezekiah was his heart for the Lord and his heart not to be conformed to the patterns of the world, nor the generations that preceded him.   

Three things that prosper us:

• Wholehearted (mind, body, soul) devotion to the Lord, giving your whole life not just pieces.
• Obedience (doing what the Lord requires, being in Christ, living out your walk with the Lord, in obedience). The Lord loves obedience over sacrifice.
• Unto the Lord  (In all we do, we must do it for the Lord; our motives should be always to please God)

Our God-Shot today is that our lives prosper as a result of wholehearted pursuit of the Lord, a surrendered life that seeks to do what the Lord tells us, and to do everything with all our heart, mind, and soul unto the Lord.   This is what blesses, what prospers us.

Lord, may they say of us "He/She wholeheartedly served the Lord all the days of their life."  May our portion be in Him, our lives be committed to Him, to serve Him, His purpose, let us not live in the wreckage and mistakes of the generations before us, in Jesus' name, Amen!

Scripture:

Isaiah 26:3-4

"3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.4 Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock."

Where Do You Find Your Peace?

Isaiah teaches us something so important about something that most of us need in our lives: "PEACE."    I confess that I have not always been good at looking for it in the right place.  Sometimes we look to people for our peace, other times it is in the security of our job, our bank, and still other times it is our surroundings, the time we are in.  But Isaiah says: "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you."  

Peace that He Brings

It is perfect

Perfect Peace: In the original Hebrew, the phrase for "perfect peace" is literally shalom shalom,

peace peace. This repetition is meant to emphasize completeness, soundness, and a deep, unbroken state of mind that isn't dependent on your current circumstances

My Peace is in HIM

A Steadfast Mind: The peace is conditional on the mind being "stayed" on God. This means keeping your thoughts fixed, settled, and focused on Him rather than on worldly anxieties or problems

Trust and Refuge: The foundation for this peace—an ongoing, eternal trust in the Lord, who is the "everlasting rock", the solid ground we can depend on and put our trust in.

Our God-Shot today is that our peace is found in Him.  If you and I want peace, we can find it in Him.   Fixing our thoughts on Him, His way, His leading, He will lead me into places of rest.  As I put my trust in Him, I will find the stability for my life in Him.   

Lord, keep our minds stayed on you and our trust in you.  Don't allow the things of this world to distract us, keep our focus on you, and our paths straight, set on your ways, in Jesus' name, Amen! 

Scripture:

Psalm 59:16

But I will sing of your strength,
    in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress,
    my refuge in times of trouble.

What do you do in times of trouble?

David, during this time, is being pursued by Saul; literally, Saul had soldiers watching David's house, waiting to kill him. In fact, in the morning, come to run him through with swords in his bed, but his wife (Saul's daughter) had warned him and snuck him through the window and he escaped.   

David in the day of his trouble, he decides to declare praise, to worship the Lord, through the blur of terrible days, through relentless attacks from those to whom he did no wrong, he declares praise. 

"BUT" is the biggest word in the Bible,

• My world was falling apart, "But! then..."  I remembered, my God is my REFUGE!  

This caused praise to fill my heart!  

• My life was in a shaky place, "But! then.." I remembered the God I serve is a FORTRESS.

This caused praise to fill my heart!  

So today, what has your attention, is it the blur of your troubles, or is it the Lord of your Refuge and Strength?

Our God-Shot today is that we can choose how we respond and what we see in the day of our trouble.   For David, it produced praise; he had seen the Lord who delivered him from the hand of giants, who was now delivering him from the hand of Saul, he was already anointed King, but would not step into it for 17 years. His world was anything but something people would expect praise from, but David saw the bigness of God, the greatness of God, and this allowed him to look beyond his trouble to see the Lord, and that produced praise.

So, how about you... Maybe you need your But then... moment this morning to remember that God is BIG, He is merciful, He is great, and He is mightier than the things you are facing.

Father, I praise you for you are our strength in difficult days, we may have days that we go through the valley, but then... You show up and lift us up, walk us through, you are always going to be greater than the sum of our circumstances, so this morning we like David lift up a shout of praise, declaring the greatness of your love, our voices will shout your praise, in Jesus' name, Amen!

Scripture:

Micah 5:4

He will stand and shepherd his flock
    in the strength of the Lord,
    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
    will reach to the ends of the earth.

In Him

Often when our world turns upside down, we look for a place of rest, places where we can refresh, things that can decompress us when life gets tough.   The only trouble with this is that we don't often look for the right things, or in the right places.   For instance, Paul tells the church in Ephesus this: "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit". (Ephesians 5:18.)   Why is the contrast important?   Because the effects of wine are temporary, and they never deal with or solve the real issue, the need to be filled, the need to be strengthened, the need for peace, but the Holy Spirit does all this and more.  

Today in our portion, Micah points us to the truth that God has everything we need: our strength, the peace we are looking for, the security we need, His able; He is great; He is mighty.

So today's God-Shot is to rely on Him, to be refreshed in and by Him today.   If you are weak, He has the strength you need; He is the mighty God, if you are suffering, He is the comforter; if you are at un-rest, He is the prince of peace, if you need direction, He is the counselor.

Lord, like David we again today acknowledge that you have "everything" we need.   We look to you today for all of it, our strength, our peace, our wisdom, our understanding, we put our trust in you, our value, we praise you, in Jesus' name, Amen!