Now Israel
pleads with me, “Help us, for you are our God.” But Israel has rejected what is
good (NLT, Hosea 8:2).
Hosea warns the
people of Israel that, because of their spiritual adultery, Assyria is poised
and ready to invade. They cry out to God for his help: Save us!
We’re your people! But the writer
makes it clear their words are incongruent with their actions. About this same
time in history, the prophet Isaiah was writing to Israel’s sister nation in
the south: [The people of Judah] come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me (Isaiah 29:13).
This passage reminds
me of Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver (1957-1963, ABC/CBS). He was an outwardly polite, smooth talking scoundrel, full of
empty compliments: “Oh my, Mrs. Cleaver, don’t you look lovely today!” When the
adults weren’t around he was a bully, always getting Wally and the Beav in
trouble. But it didn’t take long to see through his shtick. And the best thing
was he didn’t have a clue that people were on to him.
Likewise Israel
wasn’t fooling anyone but themselves. Over 700 years later, Jesus would speak
these words: Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is
in heaven (Matthew 7:21).
When you ask for
God’s help, does he think, “Good and faithful servant” or “Eddie Haskell”?
TODAY’S MEDITATION
Ask God to reveal where
your actions and attitudes are incongruent with your words.
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