Search Me, O God
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Daily Reading: Hosea 5
With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them. (Hosea 5.6)
Devotional Thought: This passage makes me a little antsy. My heart wants to argue that God is never out of our reach, and we are surely never out of his! It is true that we are never far from his love; for “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.38-39). God always loves us and longs for those who have wandered from him to return to him. What kept the Israelites from finding God in Hosea's day, is what keeps us from finding him today – unrepentant hearts.
Are you struggling with something in your life, a situation where you feel as though the Lord isn’t hearing your prayers, or where your prayers are falling flat even to your own ears? I would encourage you to examine your heart, to pray that the Lord would reveal any areas of unconfessed sin or idolatry (for instance, a desire to have control over the situation instead of giving it to the Lord). I personally have to do this often, and I find Psalm 139.23-24 to be a wonderful place to start: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting!”
Jenny Wade
Prayer: "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee. Let the water and the blood, From Thy wounded side which flowed, Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears forever flow, Could my zeal no languor know, These for sin could not atone; Thou must save and Thou alone. In my hand no price I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling." Amen. (Augustus M. Toplady)
Psalm of the Day: Psalm 81.1-7
"Jacob! Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day. For it is a statute for Israel, a rule of the God of Jacob. He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a language I had not known: “I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah"