SCRIPTURE

Studied: Hosea 10

OBSERVATION

Hosea 10:12 ~ I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’

APPLICATION

God had gotten pretty upset at Israel and gave many warnings through Hosea to share with them, however in this verse we can see where He stepped back and in very positive terms, told them what was necessary receive His blessings once again. I believe that too often we become so saturated in our sin that it almost takes a 2×4 across the head to get our attention. The advice given to Israel is still very applicable today. Only the righteous can plant seeds of righteousness, but if Christians will only strive to plant those seeds fitting of a Christian, I can hardly imagine the ‘crop of love’, or the resulting love and goodwill that will follow and become such a vital part of our church, our home and even our workplace. The second instruction is that we plow up the hard ground of our hearts. I heard a story just yesterday of a family who was trying to level the ground to find a leveled area on which to place their above-ground pool. The ground was so hard, they could do nothing with it, but they plow up the ground and this helped them to move the soil around and level the ground without difficulty. Likewise, our hearts become so hardened to the sin and/or evil and/or hatred that has become such a part of us, yes even us as Christians, that God is unable to use us for His glory. It is not until we could loosen the grip of sin on our lives and let God resume His rightful place, that we would see Him shine, or work through us. Best of all, God even tells us the results of following His commands in this regard – He will come and shower righteousness upon us! Unfortunately, I believe that this is also telling us that He will not shower that righteousness upon us until we sow the seeds of righteousness and plow up the hard ground of our hearts,

PRAYER

Father, it is so easy to look at this verse and think about all the folk that You are talking to here, but I am very aware that You directed me to this verse this morning because I personally need to do a better job at planting seeds of righteousness. I personally need to seek Your strength to help me break up the hard ground of my heart, so that I could be humble enough to allow Your Holy Spirit full reign in my life, with self brushed aside. I would so much appreciate the shower of righteousness that You would shower upon me, so please help me gain the strength and boldness to ‘plant’ and ‘plow’, beginning today.