June 19

What a beautiful end to this prophetic book. God will no doubt deal with His people, but it is ALWAYS to bring about reconciliation. Judgment always has a purpose with God. It is never venting His anger (like we do), it is meant to bring people to humility and to quit trusting in themselves (kings) and give our lives over to God.

Both in chapter 14 and in chapter 11 we see how God loves so deeply. His emotions of love run deep and His words speak to ME. I am reminded of the song lyric; “Oh, how He loves us so, oh how He loves us, how He loves us so.” I sure don’t want to be under His hand of rebuke, but better to be rebuked by the Lord than given over to my deceptions or wanderings. Yet, when I am in the middle of His heavy hand, do I think like that? I must admit, that I think I deserve what I am getting when chastised of the Lord, but I don’t like it all the time. Looking from by my perspective today, I would opt for that chastisement rather than roaming from His presence into harm and deception.

I realize as I am writing that I am speaking about deception and I will tell you why. When we wander from God, we wander towards another. When we get close to another we tend to justify it in our minds. When we do that, our thinking becomes a stronghold for them enemy to nestle in and we become deceived in our own thinking. Our mind has been taking captive. That is deception – oh God, rebuke me in the wandering so I never get to the deception.