Struggled and Overcame (Hosea 12:4)

 


Monday, August 12, 2024


Psalms 99; 100

Hosea 11:12-12:14

Romans 9:1-13


Struggled and Overcame (Hosea 12:4)


The people in Ephraim have looked at their prosperity and thought to themselves: God is happy with us because we are rich! And we, in our relative luxury in Australia, can run the risk of thinking the same thing.


But there is a vast gulf between material wealth and spiritual health. The merchants of Ephraim may be very rich, but that has come about from their dishonest scales, which is a far cry from Moses’ prayer bidding God to “prosper the work of our hands” (Psalm 90).


Through Hosea, God is reminding the people of their spiritual history, and one of those characters in particular is worth revisiting: Jacob. Jacob was not exactly the most righteous man in the Bible; he swindled his brother Esau in a pretty rotten way, and spent a fair amount of his early years being swindled himself. But Jacob had two things going for him: God loved him, and he would do anything to get God’s blessing.


It is poetic that we read this reminder about Jacob at the same time we get to chapter nine of St Paul’s letter to the Romans. Because if we were to read one or the other in isolation, we would get a lop-sided view of how God treats us. Hosea says that Jacob received God’s blessing because he wouldn’t let go of the angel until he got them, while St Paul says that God had always decided to bless Jacob.


What if these statements were both true? That God’s blessings always go where God wants them to; and God also expects us to want those blessings, and work for them?


If we are, like the Ephraimite merchants, wealthy because of our dishonesty, then we have not received the blessing of Jacob. But if we don’t struggle with God in prayer and overcome our doubts and fears by the grace of the Holy Spirit, then we won’t receive the blessings, either. Both work together, and it is a wonderful assurance to us that none of our work is in vain. God’s decision to bless us has been decided from eternity past; and we are now obliged to work on building the kingdom of heaven as the means by which God blesses us.


When was the last time you really struggled in prayer? Did you keep wrestling until the Holy Spirit released you?


Lord God, inspire in me a loving zeal for your blessing. Give me a deeper power in private prayer, more sweetness in your word, more steadfast grip on its truth.

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