Hosea 6:1-2

For Reading and Meditation:     Hosea 6:1-11

A danger that we must acquaint ourselves with as we discuss the need to contemplate God more deeply is that of becoming more interested in godliness than in God Himself. Theologian Jim Packer puts the point effectively when he says that "moving in evangelical circles as I do I am often troubled by what I find. While my...

"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." Hosea 6:1

It is the LORD's way to tear before He heals. This is the honest love of His heart and the sure surgery of His hand. He also bruises before He binds up, or else it would be uncertain work. The law comes before the gospel, the sense of need before the supply of it. Is the reader now under the convincing,...

Is it at all unreasonable to suppose that the contemplation of God will yield us greater more precious results than the consideration of anything or of everything in this world that he has made? You are wrapt up in the study of mineralogy, or botany, or conchology; and have no time to spare for the cultivation of your acquaintance with God. The sight of a little shell has wonderful power to awaken all your faculties: and you have no rest till you have ascertained its characteristics, traced...

Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it" (Matt. 26:26).

The Lord Jesus is not going to break' anything in our lives that does not require breaking. But that of the old which remains unbroken, which we seek to hold back from the processing of His nail-pierced hands,...