Daily Devotional for Friday, July 10

God Is Hurt by Our Sins

“I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled. Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee, when I returned the captivity of my people,” Hosea 6:10, 11.
It is an experience that is shared by many parents who correct their children by disciplining them. As they were disciplining their child and the child was crying, the parent was crying also because it hurt them to hear their child crying. The parent was grieved by the harm the child’s disobedient actions could do to the child’s life.
Israel as a nation needed correction from God because of their disobedience and open defiance towards the Lord. Hosea 6:1 states, “Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.” There can be seen two perspectives regarding the Lord’s chastisement upon Israel. One perspective is that individually after you have disobeyed God, you recognize the damage that sin has done in your life. You experience sin pulling your life to pieces, beating you down, killing  the joy in your life and the irreparable damage you get caught up in and you have nowhere to turn. This grieves God because He loves you and had a way for you to escape if you would have obeyed Him. As a child of God, He desires only the best for your life.
The other perspective is that God knows the extent that sin has damaged your life and what it will take for Him to help you to recover. God knows the depths you have experienced, He knows the wounds you have experienced, and He knows the hard strikes that you have come against because of the sin in which you chose to be involved. God is hurt because He bore your sins in His body on the cross so you could choose His way rather than choosing the destruction that is produced by sin.

FINAL THOUGHT
Return to the Lord. He is willing to forgive and restore fellowship with you.

Andrew McClung