Sat.’s Devo - Promise of Healing

Read: Hosea 6:1-9:17; 3 John 1:1-14; Psalm 126:1-6; Proverbs 29:12-14
God starts out with a beautiful promise of healing to a very broken and sinful nation. As surely as the sun rises to show his faithfulness and soverignty over the earth, God will appear to his people and restore them. He explained to them that he rebuked them through his prophets but his greatest desire was to show mercy and not judgment, but they broke their covenant with him so he had no choice.
Hosea gave the people a list of all the things they had done to defile themselves and dishonor God. God longed to redeem them but they spoke lies against him.
In Chapter 8, God told Hosea to put the trumpet to his mouth to signal the coming attack of the Assyrians. They had appointed kings that God didn’t appoint and chosen the wrong leaders. They had made idols to their own destruction. They had become like the Gentile nations around them with nothing to distinguish them as God’s people. Their punishment will be that they will have to return to Egypt, the very place God had delivered them out of.
The prophet of the Lord had become their enemy and they considered his words foolishness. The person that carried the anointing of God was thought to be a lunatic. They rejected God but they were about to find out how much worse it is when God turns his face against them and rejects them.
God mentioned Gilgal, where they chose their first king, Saul, rejecting God as their king. Now, they would be rejected by the Lord and wander among the nations.
What a stark contrast to read the good news in Third John. John writes to a people who are faithful and walk in the truth. They were walking in love - not only their brothers in the Lord but to the ones in the world.
They were doing all the right things even though they had a vicious enemy, Diotrephes, who tried to divide and tell lies about what they were doing. He reminds them not to return to him what he is doing to them but to do good back.
Then he brags about Demetrius who was doing it right. When we do right even truth speaks well of us.
Lord, help us to be examples of your love and mercy. May we walk in truth. Help us to love our enemies for your sake.