Week of June 21-27
"For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. "
[Hosea 6:6]
Note: Grammatically, these two sentences are a good picture of biblical parallelism. Mercy parallels acknowledgement (knowledge/knowing = a term of intimacy or relationship) of God and sacrifice parallels burnt offerings.
A loose translation might be: I am looking for life change that flows out of knowing God, not the mere practice of religious observances. Another way of thinking about it is that God is looking for relationship, not religion.
I found this great overview of Hosea. It is about 3 minutes long. Enjoy!
http://www.helives.com/blog/media/hosea-overview/
1 comment:
from Every Man's Bible/Tyndale Publishers: says this in Hosea 6:6
"I want you to be merciful; I don't want your secrifices. I want you to know God; that's more important than burnt offerings."
(footnotes on verse) The way we treat people gives us a good idea of how committed we are to the FATHER. Our religious worship activites can be 'acted out' w/o true feelings. Acting kindly toward others and forgiving those who we think have hurt us not only proves that we are GROWING spiritually; it also helps us to grow and be liberated up in love by a very generous FATHER. Sincere worship will bring an outcome of love and forgiveness...not indifference or barriers among Christians. When we act "religious" and give our burnt offerings but hold an "ought"against a brother or sister in Christ that can't be God in His mercy...right? "Be imatators of Christ." Eph. 5:1
Did our JESUS display MERCY on that bloody cross...or did HE not sacrifice enought for me and you that we cannot love, forgive, and forget? I love mercy! I love this verse! It reminds me to pray...I don't want to be "pretender" in Christ...I want to be an authentic sacrificing and merciful Christian to my "family" of Christians...even non-believers too! I am not "fooling" God...maybe you and others...but NOT God. HE knows everything. Jn.21:17
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