Friday, August 31, 2012

The True Blessing of God May Not Be Obvious

Hosea 13:6 "According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me."
 
The key phrase here: "...therefore have they forgotten me." Israel had, through the blessings, forgot the one who had redeemed them from Egypt and the one who led them through the wilderness and brought them across the Red Sea and the Jordan, who fed them with manna and brought them into victory over the 31 kings in the land of their inheritance. They forgot Him who loved them and cared for them and heard their cries. Why did they forget Him? It was because their pastures were green and the blessings of God abounded. In the midst of their green pastures and in the midst of the blessings of God their hearts drifted away, they became carnal and vain, the Lord and His commandments in their carnality had become unimportant to them. They found it easy to replace Him with the blessings He gave. It is true for some that in reality it is the blessing and love of God upon their life that allows them to suffer in a captivity of some sort, we will not take time to define a captivity all we will say is that we must endeavor, when suffering, to always give God the benefit of the doubt. If He is not moving swiftly to deliver you immediately from some bondage or pit then do not become frustrated with God; it may be He is preventing you from drifting by keeping you crying out. Here is my advice; learn to always give Him thanks in every trial, the point here is that we do not forget our God and cast His commandments behind us. Trials and bondages have a way of keeping us focused on Him.
 
There can be no doubt His desire is to eventually bring us out into glorious liberty but how tragic if He brings deliverance and then blesses and the result is that one forgets God and is condemned in the end. Lamentations three puts it best: Lamentations 3:25-26 KJV  25 "The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. 26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD." One of the greatest expressions of love is to wait patiently and without criticism for one's deliverance. Cry out by all means for deliverance but just temper your spirit with a deep appreciation and a knowledge that He does know what is best. After all, perhaps it is that thing that we have no control over that seems to make life so difficult that is, in fact, one's salvation. Perhaps It keeps one from pride and forgetting God.
 
"According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted..." They were filled and their heart was exalted, they became selfish and vain; therefore, they forgot their God and those things which are important to Him (His words, His commands and their treatment of the poor and their neighbors). I have seen over the years that the wilderness does indeed claim many victims, those who turn against God because He did not cater to them or pamper them just so; however, that is not as tragic as one who who has come to know Him with a little more depth, one who has broken through and begins walking in the blessings of God who then turns to the world and carnality and forgets God. This should be our final prayer: Proverbs 30:7-9 KJV "7 Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: 8 Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: 9 Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain."