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Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
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Hosea 6:6
“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Here we have another glimpse of the heart of God. A ‘Ring of Truth’!
As we have seen, time and time again, Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. God is not so much interested in rules and regulations as in our love and friendship. Devotion rather than duty. Lifestyle rather than legalism. God is into wholeness and reality, not partiality and pretence. God wants us to be radically different from the world, rather than passively compliant. He never envisaged ‘Sunday Only’ Christians, or compromising disciples.
The problem for Israel was that they thought ‘going through the motions’ was enough. “God wants sacrifices – let Him have them. God desires burnt offerings so give them to Him. That should keep Him off our backs.” But they had completely missed the point, just like so many people do today.
God is a good, fun-loving, God of purity, truth, integrity and righteousness and He expects His disciples to follow Him and show the same characteristics. So many see that as restrictive and boring, so choose to go with the ‘flow’ of society for most of the time and follow God when they consider it convenient, ‘appropriate’, or when there is nothing ‘better to do’.
But truth is neither relative nor man-regulated. Truth is God-determined. God is a consistent God and expects His followers to be the same. God is a God of mercy and yet as Christians, we can be the most ungracious, unsympathetic and judgmental people of all. Yes, God deals with sin but forgives the sinner. Our trouble is that so often we get it around the other way. We make light of the sin and hammer the sinner. God deals with the sin. Indeed He dealt completely with the sin but is merciful to the sinner.
He does so, not to ‘get another sacrifice’ or ‘burnt offering’, but to set sinners free so that they don’t continue in sin but love Him and follow Him in response. We should have a lifestyle of gratitude and forgiveness because we have been given so much and forgiven more than we could ever imagine or repay.
We shouldn’t sing hymns and choruses just because they make us feel good; instead they should flow from a grateful heart to our loving Heavenly Father. When we worship, we should first check our motives and hearts. We need to check that we are not doing it grudgingly or out of duty. And we need to make sure that we do not hold unforgiveness, bitterness or grudges in our hearts towards others – for if we do, we nullify our worship to God. As John says, “Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). We also need to stop ‘going through the motions’ and just ‘attending church’.
Let’s, rather, strive to be consistent, to be more merciful and live in a more Christ-like way day by day. Then we will become a true follower of Jesus Christ.
(N.B. We need to be especially watchful if we are church ‘leaders’ or ‘staff’.)
Download the above Ring of Truth devotion as a PDF.
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