Yesterday it was, “keep your soul diligently” and today it
is “watch yourselves very carefully.” What
is the need of watching ourselves? It is
that we not allow ourselves to be seduced away from the Lord and create idols
for ourselves. Idolatry is an easy
default for us, to worship nothing at all, or everything, or, best of all,
something that demands of us exactly what we are willing to give and no more,
something that doesn’t require us to change much, to rethink our values and
priorities. This form of idolatry is
nothing more than narcissism, worshipping what we already love. What is it that you worship? What you are chasing after, money, house,
cars, body, prestige, popularity determines who you are becoming. If we don’t watch ourselves very carefully,
we will indeed lapse into idolatry, we have to deliberately follow Him, it
doesn’t happen by accident. As the
philosopher Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Diligence is required for covenant keeping.
A wonderful thing about our God is that He cares if we get
lost along the way. The nature of a covenant relationship is that both parties
have an obligation to one another but the best thing about our covenant relationship
with our God is that it is based in mutual love. It isn’t only that He did something for us
once, Jesus died on the cross, but it is that He continues to love us enough to
bring us back when and if we stray from Him.
Hosea’s life was to be a demonstration of God’s love for His wayward
bride. However far we stray from that
covenant relationship, however many lovers and idols we have, He continues to
love us and is always willing to receive us back with open arms. Is that love reciprocal? His goal is more than eternal life, it is a
love affair, a betrothal. The parables
here tell us of His great love and our great value to Him.
Apparently some in Corinth have questioned Paul’s sincerity and
his love for them. He wanted to visit
them but, it seems he was unable to follow through on that hope and some have
concluded that he failed to visit because he really was weak in character and
integrity. Having been in ministry for a
time now, I can tell you exactly what this looks like. When our plans change, people get their
feelings hurt and then we can do nothing right, our motivations are questioned
and they conclude we don’t really love them.
Paul says in his defense, “we behaved in the world with simplicity and
godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely
so toward you.” He has examined himself
and his motives and is confident that he has not acted towards the Corinthians
with anything other than simply and sincerely.
We can sometimes get disappointed with God and feel like He has not done
as He promised when our plans go awry. We
need to watch this attitude towards Him and others very carefully, it is the
first step to idolatry and to a failure to love.
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