Weekly Devotional: Gems From Pastor Jim 10/26/2020

by Jim Hughes

Hosea 10:12 Plant the good seeds of righteousness and you will harvest a crop of my 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 on you.

When you live in righteousness you will naturally be a loving person. You cannot be right with God and not inherit His love nature. No matter how well you may be able to live righteously by man’s standards, if you are not loving, you are not living righteously by God’s standards.

Hosea spoke to a people who based their righteousness on how well they were able to live by God’s law. God made it very clear what they must do in order to be right with Him. What ended up happening was that when they lived by the law they failed to love one another and legalism without love creates a hard heart. Hosea’s admonition was for them to plow up the hardness of their hearts. Obedience to God must be done for the right reason. What we do must flow from hearts of love, not duty.

If you are not motivated by love for the Lord in what you do, now is the time to do something about it. Continuing on without love makes the heart hard towards God. No matter how much good you are doing, if love is not behind it, you do it in vain. God knows your heart and whether or not your motivation in doing what is right is love and He will hold you accountable for your motivation. If you want to be sure your heart is right with God, take a bath in His love. He will shower you in His righteousness and all will be well with your soul.

Loving God overshadows everything we do. It affects not only our standing with God, it affects our relationships with others. We cannot love God without loving people. We cannot live righteously with uncaring souls.

Now is the time to examine your soul. Now is the time to seek the Lord. Now is the time to make sure that loving God is the driving force in your life. Now is the time to live righteously before God. Tomorrow may never come and if you don’t do it now, it may be too late.

About the Author:

Spending his formative years in Ft. Wayne, IN, Jim followed the love of his life to southeast Iowa where they married and have spent the majority of their lives. Jim has pastored several churches throughout his life and has worked many years in local factories to help support his family. The father of two married adult children and one son still at home, Jim is a first-time author.

C Through Marriage came into being through many years of pastoral and life experiences. The book first took on a life of its own over 20 years ago when I sought to address the much publicized moral failures of prominent leaders in the church. In the chapter on Chasity, I include the guideliness that I developed then to protect one's self from such failures.

I am a firm believer in order to make sense out of life you have to use much common sense. We need to get back to the basics of what has worked for many, many generations. If is isn't broke, why try to fix it? I strive to return to the basics of what really works in all my writings.