Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – Hosea 14; Hebrews 5
Set – Hosea 14; Psalms 102; Hebrews 5
Go! – Hosea 13–14; Psalms 100,102; Hebrews 5
Hosea 14; Hebrews 5
1 Return, Israel, to the Eternal, your True God.
You’ve stumbled because of your wickedness.
2 Think about what to say, and come back to the Eternal One.
Say to Him, “Forgive all our sins, and take us back again.
Bring us into Your good grace so we can offer You praise and sacrifice,
the fruit of our lips.
3 We admit that Assyria can’t save us, nor can riding horses and chariots into battle.
We’ll never again say to idols made with our own hands, ‘You’re our gods!’
We know You’re merciful because You take care of orphans.”
4 Eternal One: I’ll heal their apostate hearts so they won’t turn away from Me again;
I’ll love them freely because I won’t be angry with them anymore.
5 I’ll be like dew that waters Israel. She’ll blossom like the lily.
She’ll put down roots like the stable cedars of Lebanon;
6 She’ll send out shoots until her beauty is like the olive tree
and her fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon.
7 The people will return from exile and sit in My shade once again;
they’ll flourish like grain; they’ll send out shoots like the vine.
And their fame will be like the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim, what do I have in common with deaf and blind idols?
I’m the One who responds to your pleas and cares for you.
I’m like a flourishing juniper tree; I provide life year-round.
9 The wise will understand these things;
the perceptive will know them.
For everything the Eternal One does is right,
and the righteous follow His ways.
But those who turn against Him will stumble along His path.1Remember what I said earlier about the role of the high priest, even the ones chosen by human beings? The job of every high priest is reconciliation: approaching God on behalf of others and offering Him gifts and sacrifices to repair the damage caused by our sins against God and each other. 2 The high priest should have compassion for those who are ignorant of the faith and those who fall out of the faith because he also has wrestled with human weakness, 3 and so the priest must offer sacrifices both for his sins and for those of the people. 4 The office of high priest and the honor that goes along with it isn’t one that someone just takes. One must be set aside, called by God, just as God called Aaron, the brother of Moses.
5 In the same way, the Anointed One, our Liberating King, didn’t call Himself but was appointed to His priestly office by God, who said to Him,
You are My Son.
Today I have become Your Father,[a]
6 and who also says elsewhere,
You are a priest forever—
in the honored order of Melchizedek.7 When Jesus was on the earth, a man of flesh and blood, He offered up prayers and pleas, groans and tears to the One who could save Him from death. He was heard because He approached God with reverence. 8 Although He was a Son, Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered. 9 And once He was perfected through that suffering He became the way of eternal salvation for all those who hear and follow Him, 10 for God appointed Him to be a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
11 I have a lot more to say about this, but it may be hard for you to follow since you’ve become dull in your understanding. 12 By this time, you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet I feel like you want me to reteach you the most basic things that God wants you to know. It’s almost like you’re a baby again, coddled at your mother’s breast, nursing, not ready for solid food. 13 No one who lives on milk alone can know the ins and outs of what it means to be righteous and pursue justice; that’s because he is only a baby. 14 But solid food is for those who have come of age, for those who have learned through practice to distinguish good from evil.
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
Too many people learn their life lessons through intense suffering. Unfortunately, More never learn life lessons at all because they just never take the time to figure out what got them into the mess they find themselves. The passages you heard from Hosea and Hebrews points out the importance of stopping and reflecting on where you are in life and what your goals are for the coming years.
The Israelites finally woke up and discovered the enemy at their door was a result of their abandonment of Me. They forgot how they came to this land in the first place. Finally, they listen to My prophets, came to their senses and began to pray. When they did, I listened.
The writer of Hebrews brings his readers to the same conclusion in the verses you heard today. Too many of My followers content themselves with dabbling in My word. Just getting enough of Me to satisfy their guilty conscience but never delving into the riches I have for you. I want you to grow up. I want you to tackle the meat in My word. I want you to study what I tell you.
Learning about Me is different than knowing Me. Think back to your school days. Until you dug into your school work and began to put all of those elementary skills to work building on each other, you couldn’t compose sentences or paragraphs or ideas into meaningful essays. You couldn’t get beyond adding simple numbers or understand how higher math could ever be useful in life. But ask a mechanical engineer about calculus and how he uses it to test the tensil strength of materials. He’ll tell you the importance of the math he learned years ago.
Some have said it takes 10,000 hours of active practice to become an expert in any skill. Have you given 10,000 hours to the active practice of seeking and following Me? That doesn’t mean just saying you’re a Christian or going to church. That means active practice – studying, praying, seeking Me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
You don’t have to say anything, we both know the answer. Is it time to work toward becoming an expert in following Me? There’s no time like the present to start.
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