Thursday, January 14, 2016

Unfaithful Israel

Sacred Gifts and Holy Gatherings
Four Weddings and a Funeral

An Unfaithful Bride

Hosea 4:1-10  The Message

No One Is Faithful

1-3 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.
4-10 “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 ruined
    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.
The more priests, the more sin.
    They traded in their glory for shame.
They pig out on my people’s sins.
    They can’t wait for the latest in evil.
The result: You can’t tell the people from the priests,
    the priests from the people.
I’m on my way to make them both pay
    and take the consequences of the bad lives they’ve lived.
They’ll eat and be as hungry as ever,
    have sex and get no satisfaction.
They walked out on me, their God,
    for a life of rutting with whores.


For Reflection 
What a powerful indictment of organized religion!  Doesn't it strike you that even though there seems to be a church on every corner, Godlessness is so pervasive , even among those who claim to be Christian?  
 
What is your test of true Christian Faith?  What cultural embedded religious beliefs and actions seem contrary to the teachings of Jesus?

Pray
for the wisdom to differentiate true Christian beliefs and action from perversions of the gospel.

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