Wednesday, August 10, 2022

 

Wednesday, August 10, 2022


Psalms 92; 93


Hosea 14


Romans 9:25-10:4


Commemoration: Laurence, deacon and martyr at Rome (d. 258)



Lord, how glorious are your works: your thoughts are very deep.



Just as we conclude our study through Hosea, Paul comes around full circle on the line of reasoning he began in chapter 8. We have been through the ringer, doctrinally speaking. First, we were assured that Christ's work on the cross is all that we needed to be saved. Then, the ante was upped with the promise not only of salvation but rising to glory alongside Christ, and the Spirit of God making our bodies His home. We then found some pretty confronting ideas: that God gets to decide for Himself what God does; that God has decided that some people will receive justice and others mercy; and finally, that we don't get to complain about the situation because God is both just and autonomous, while we are not.


Now we have to decide whether this God is worth worshipping. God hates idol worship: “What have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you.” An idol is simply another word for a god we invent in our own head. Many people worship a god they have made up. Have you ever heard the phrase “I can't worship a god who...”? Sounds suspiciously idolatrous, no?


The only God worth worshipping, worth devoting our life and spirit and body and mind to, is the true God. This true God has been revealed to us. God needs to reveal Himself to us because He is too big and wonderful for us to invent on our own. We do not need to strive to invent a god that is pleasing to our sensibilities; in fact, that is exactly what the Bible calls the “stumbling stone”. Christ is that rock: God, coming in human form, demonstrating God's perfect nature, and showing to us that we cannot be “good” under our own effort. Then on top of all that, dying on the cross and rising to life again to provide the actual means for us to be as good as God. We must submit to God's righteousness, God's truth, not an invention that we can put in a box an admire when we get bored. “Those who are wise understand these things; those who are discerning know them.”

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