Today's Worship: God's love is fulfilled by means of his justice!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Hosea 7:13,

"Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them,
because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they
speak lies against me."

As the Lord finds Israel ripe for judgment, he expresses his desire to
redeem her. Those that have treated their Creator with contempt, the
very ones who were brought out of their low estate in Egypt by him and
settled in a land of blessing by him, these are the ones who treated
the Lord shamefully but are the very ones that the Lord longs to
redeem! As the Lord had Hosea marry an adulterous prostitute to act
out Israel's infidelity toward him, he expresses himself as a man who
longs for the one he loves. In this all, Israel portrays the estate of
all mankind.

The Lord, in fact, will find the fulfillment of his heart's desire as
he sends his Son, Jesus Christ to pay for the sins of the world, for
the sins of all the people who have ever lived, as he loves us all.
Our God has a big heart and longs for us all. In that all have sinned,
all need redemption to provide an opportunity to gain a place in his
family, something he strongly desires for us all. Unfortunately, not
all will avail themselves of this opportunity because the atonement
for sins his Son paid will only be credited to us if we embrace him in
faith. We all have our own choice to make.

What strikes me this morning is the interplay of the two chief
characteristics of our God: our God is righteous and just, he is also
loving and merciful. When it comes to the question of whether or not
"the end justifies the means", the Lord demonstrates for us that the
end, the fulfillment of his heart's desire to bring us into his
family, never compromises his righteousness and justice. The means he
employs to bring the end he desires fulfills his righteous nature. He
sacrificed his Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the penalty that we might
have eternal life with him.

I have never seen in Scripture the Lord employ any means that were
inconsistent with his righteous and holy character to gain an end he
pursued.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com