Hemmed in By Love
If we turn from our wrong ways, God will heal us. If we reject the sins of self and the sins of greed which lead us to so many other sins in our lives, God will not reject us. We serve such a loving and merciful God. We have been reading all about the judgment of the Lord and yet, we cannot miss the love within those pronouncements. As we talked about yesterday, God gave His children plenty of opportunities to turn around and run back to His arms. Today, He again tells us to seek Him if we want to live. If we want to see blessings instead of feeling the sting of discipline, we need to stay close to His side. Only His way brings life. Only His way leads to peace in our souls and our hearts – even if the world around us is turned upside down.
As we have read all these pronouncements of judgment against the wicked, we can see the same message repeated over and over. This is the message of each and every one of God’s commands: Love the Lord, love one another. As Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40) This was the great sin of those condemned by God: they had left their first love. They no longer honored God with an everlasting love. They cared not for their fellow man. They had allowed their love to run ice cold.
Verse 14 of our reading tells us, “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you as you have said.” Let this be our guiding light. When we place God foremost in our mind, we cannot help but live lives of mercy and love towards others. The closer we get to God, the more we reflect His character. This is His character: love, mercy, justice, and righteousness. How can we reject when He welcomes? How can we condemn when He forgives? How can we hate, manipulate, and use, when He gave His very life for those who hated Him the most? Let us live with the command given to us at the end of today’s reading: “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (verse 24) When we live girded by love, we will seek justice and walk in mercy. Then we will truly be like our Heavenly Father.
(Written by Keegan Harkins.)
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