Day 64

What good are your works if you do not know God?

Israel and Judah loved to worship God. They came with their required sacrifices and their songs. They made a big spectacle of the act of worship even in their dress and motions. But God tells us in Hosea 6:6, "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." It's the knowledge of God the people lacked. They had become like "backsliding heifers".

Hosea addresses this problem specifically in chapter four:

Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. (v. 1)

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (v. 6)

Truth and mercy are things we gain when we know the Lord. If our works lack truth and mercy it is because we do not know God and his ways. But this knowledge is not simply a textbook recitation of facts. It's a personal "knowing" like I would know my wife or know my children.

But there is hope even in this. God continues this thought in Hosea 6:3:

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

God promises restoration and blessing in our pursuit to know God. He describes this blessing as rain falling on dry thirsty land. And where their is rain, there is life.

What better way to know the Lord than through his love letter to us: The Scriptures. I pray you would be encouraged this week as you seek to know the Lord and serve him in truth and mercy.

Coram Deo,

Jay Silvas