Know Me!

Joe Wittwer | July 05, 2012

Scripture: Hosea 2-5, Hebrews 2

            Hosea 3:6 (NLT) My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me.

            Hosea 3:6 (NIV) My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.

 

Observation/application

            This is one of the themes in Hosea: knowing God.  And it is not an academic knowledge, but a personal knowledge.  The illustration is Hosea’s marriage: knowing is relational, intimate, personal. 

            It is so easy for relationship to devolve into religion, for the personal to become impersonal.  It happens in marriages (again, illustrated by Gomer’s unfaithfulness to Hosea)—we stop “knowing” each other, we go through the motions without investing the energy necessary to really know each other.  We live as strangers in the same house and the same bed. 

            And this happens with God.  We stop pursuing Him and pursue others.  We don’t really know Him, but we go through the motions of belief.  There is no relationship, just ceremonies, rituals and routines.

            Without knowing God, our hearts are inevitably drawn away into idolatry, and we are destroyed. 

            I want to pursue God personally and really know Him.  For me, this means making time to talk with Him, time to think and meditate and pray and listen.  Hurry and busyness are the idols that keep me from knowing Him.

 

Prayer: Lord, help me today to slow down and listen, to seek You and seek to really know You.  Don’t ever let me settle for religion when I could have a relationship with You.