A Wandering Heart...

The warm sun slowly burns the glistening, 

swirling, sparkling, 

frost patterns on the window pane away.

Fall is here.

This is the time of year when I curl up under a warm blanket,

Bible and steaming red mug of coffee in hand.

I am reading the book of Hosea.

God commanded Hosea to take a harlot as his wife.

She committed adultery.

A picture of Israel's unfaithfulness to God.

  

"Go, take yourself a wife of  harlotry and children of harlotry,

for the land has committed great harlotry by 

departing from the LORD."

 Hosea 1:2

How often my own heart strays!

"Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love..."

Like the Israelites, I easily become ensnared in my sin, 

a slave to my flesh. 

I willingly choose this over the glory of God?

Jesus Christ set me free from the bondage of sin, 

and yet I return so swiftly.

In my heart and mind I do not desire to enslave myself to sin, 

but then how do I fall so easily?

"O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

I thank God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God,

but with the flesh the law of sin."

Romans 7:24 & 25

It is a never ending war against the flesh. I must kill sin every waking moment.

"For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit 

you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."

Romans 8:13

Well, that is what is on my mind this morning as I savor

the richness of God's grace towards the Israelites.

And towards me.