Change of Plans, Day 14 Sometimes a change of plans begins with a change of heart. Read Hosea chapter 14. Today wraps up this series through the book of Hosea. Here, we see that God has continued working with the people and drawing them to himself, and they have had a change of heart. They are seeking repentance they’re coming back to God. You see having a change of plans is really about allowing God to change our hearts. Having a change of heart and recognizing who God is and what God has done is going to allow us the opportunity to experience God’s forgiveness. Are we enjoying the redemption…

Change of Plans, Day 13 Are you satisfied? Read Hosea chapter 13. My husband is a pastor and together we have been in ministry for almost 30 years. We have a passion for discipleship and seeing people live out their Christian faith daily. In many cases, the people that we have seen the most growth and excitement in have come from those who are not satisfied. Maybe they weren’t satisfied with their marriage, or with their family. Maybe they weren’t satisfied with their prayer life or their Bible reading. Maybe they weren’t satisfied with life in general. Those people were the people that were willing to make changes and to…

Change of Plans, Day 12 Return, Maintain, and Wait. Read Hosea chapter 12. Often, we tend to really like checklists. We want a list of what we need to get done and accomplish so that we can feel like we have succeeded. When we look at all that God is asking of us, it can be really hard to boil it down to just a checklist. At the end of the day, we are simply to commit our whole self to him. When we think about what does that look like on a regular basis, this verse gives us some ideas that we can add to our daily practice. We…

Change of Plans, Day 11 Why do we desire to rebel? Read Hosea chapter 11. I used to know an athlete who really liked people to tell her that she couldn’t do something. She would get upset and use that anger to push her to excel and exceed in that very thing. She wanted to prove the person wrong. I’ve also known plenty of teenagers who delighted in doing the exact opposite of what their parents asked them to do. It didn’t even matter if they had originally wanted to do something in the first place. The very fact that their parents wanted them to do it meant that they…

Change of Plans, Day 10 Can you trust your plans? Read Hosea chapter 10. When someone promises you something, do you believe them? We talk a lot about the idea of integrity, but when it comes to plans, that can be especially important. Do you follow through on the plans that you make? We see here that the people of Israel were not good at all at following through. Apparently, they made all kinds of promises that they never intended to keep. This was happening to each other and was resulting in lawsuits and arguments and problems for so many people. If we are following God, then we will keep…

Change of Plans, Day 9 Rejection. Read Hosea chapter 9. We strive so hard to avoid rejection. So many parts of our makeup include ways in which we can identify, understand, and resolve situations where people don’t like us. We want to feel validated by others. God wants the people to understand that because of the way they’ve been acting, he does reject them and all that they are. That’s a harsh statement and can be a difficult reality to understand and accept. God is not a God of tolerance. God is not a God of total acceptance. There is a standard that God requires and for those who don’t…

Change of Plans, Day 8 Do our plans match God’s plans? Read Hosea chapter 8. I am a planner. I am really good at figuring out how to get objectives accomplished and making sure that we meet deadlines. I love a good plan. My plans often have backup plans. And occasionally, my backup plans have backup plans. I can get carried away with the details and the logistics of making sure that something gets done. However, the bigger question is how do my plans get determined? As we have been reading about all the changes of plans that God has done in this book, we can see that so often,…

Change of Plans, Day 7 God Remembers. Read Hosea chapter 7. When someone does something against you or wrongs you in some way, how long do you remember that? Even when we make a choice to forgive, we still remember what people did to us. It can influence us in ways we hadn’t expected and sometimes in ways that we don’t want. God himself has a memory. God remembers our sins. He tells the people here that he remembers what they have done. He knows what they have done and their sin is always before him. What an incredible idea to think through that God knows and remembers our sins.…

Change of Plans, Day 6 Change of Offerings. Read Hosea chapter 6. It can be really hard when plans change. We can have an incredible idea of what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it .Then all of a sudden, we get to the place and the time when that’s supposed to happen and we realize that’s something else will happen instead. Here we see the people of Israel having grown up with an expectation and understanding of what they thought God wanted. They thought God wanted sacrifices. They thought God wanted offerings. Now they are learning that what God really wants is mercy and acknowledgment.…