If You Want to Live Well

August 20, 2024July 15, 2024 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

Hosea 14 – The Message

Come Back! Return to Your God!

14 ^1-3O Israel, come back! Return to your God!
    You’re down but you’re not out.
Prepare your confession
    and come back to God.
Pray to him, “Take away our sin,
    accept our confession.
Receive as restitution
    our repentant prayers.
Assyria won’t save us;
    horses won’t get us where we want to go.
We’ll never again say ‘our god’
    to something we’ve made or made up.
You’re our last hope. Is it not true
    that in you the orphan finds mercy?”

* * *

^4-8“I will heal their waywardness.
    I will love them lavishly. My anger is played out.
I will make a fresh start with Israel.
    He’ll burst into bloom like a crocus in the spring.
He’ll put down deep oak tree roots,
    he’ll become a forest of oaks!
He’ll become splendid—like a giant sequoia,
    his fragrance like a grove of cedars!
Those who live near him will be blessed by him,
    be blessed and prosper like golden grain.
Everyone will be talking about them,
    spreading their fame as the vintage children of God.
Ephraim is finished with gods that are no-gods.
    From now on I’m the one who answers and satisfies him.
I am like a luxuriant fruit tree.
    Everything you need is to be found in me.”

* * *

⁹If you want to live well,
    make sure you understand all of this.
If you know what’s good for you,
    you’ll learn this inside and out.
God’s paths get you where you want to go.
    Right-living people walk them easily;
    wrong-living people are always tripping and stumbling.

The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson

Salt and Pepper to Taste

August 13, 2024July 13, 2024 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

If you look at recipes much, you will find the instructions, “salt and pepper to taste.” As you can figure out, it means to add the amount of those spices to please your pallet. To make it happy, to please yourself.

When I saw this phrase the other day, it reminded me of how people prepare their relationship with God. They add just enough “religion” to make them feel safe. Safe from winding up in hell, they hope! Others want to see their god, so they build idols or allow things of this world to become their idol. Life is so much easier when done God’s way. Some try so hard to do things their way and yet get nowhere. No true happiness, no true life!

Hosea 13:1-3 (MSG)
Religion Customized to Taste

13 ^1-3God once let loose against Ephraim
    a terrifying sentence against Israel:
Caught and convicted
    in the lewd sex-worship of Baal—they died!
And now they’re back in the sin business again,
    manufacturing god-images they can use,
Religion customized to taste. Professionals see to it:
    Anything you want in a god you can get.
Can you believe it? They sacrifice live babies to these dead gods—
    kill living babies and kiss golden calves!
And now there’s nothing left to these people:
    hollow men, desiccated women,
Like scraps of paper blown down the street,
    like smoke in a gusty wind.

Hosea 14:9 (MSG)

God’s paths get you where you want to go.
Right-living people walk them easily;
wrong-living people are always tripping and stumbling.

Palestinians Need to Go!

November 21, 2023November 27, 2023 / Mark Brady / 4 Comments

There’s a lot of debate these days concerning what Israel should do with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Usually, I don’t write about political issues, but I can’t ignore this one. It’s my humble opinion that Israel should completely remove the Palestinians from their land. Not kill them but drive them out. Why do I say that?

^50-53God spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho: “Tell the People of Israel, When you cross the Jordan into the country of Canaan, drive out the native population before you, destroy their carved idols, destroy their cast images, level their worship-mounds so that you take over the land and make yourself at home in it; I’ve given it to you. It’s yours. Num. 33:50-53 (MSG)

God knew if the Israelites didn’t obey Him and remove the people who occupied the land He was giving them, then they would be tempted to become like them and serve their gods. It can be difficult sometimes to worship and serve a God you can’t see. That is one reason the people who did not know God built idols of their made-up gods so that they could see them. In reality, it takes more faith to worship a god that is dead!

There is no difference with some people today. They have an innate desire to serve a god, and so they worship all kinds of things that are dead and can’t do anything for them. And those who do know God and even live according to his word, if they do not remove the things of the world from their land, territory, home, and life, they, too, will turn from God eventually.

Some are easily influenced or persuaded by what appears to be successful people who don’t know God. They too easily give up on God or grow impatient with Him to move in their life. So, the same principle God told Israel of removing anything that would come before Him from their land applies to our lives. That is why Israel should remove the Palestinian people from their land. Otherwise, they will always be a thorn in their side. They will continue to cause trouble for Israel. That is the ONLY way to bring real peace to the land.

Made in China

September 1, 2023September 1, 2023 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

On his wedding night, a young man started checking out his Chinese wife from head to toe. “What are you looking for?” asked his bride. “I’m looking to see if you were stamped, ‘Made in China.’”

I was reading Psalms 101 this week, and I came across the following scripture:

I reject made-in-Canaan gods. vs. 3 (MSG)

It made me think about where people get their gods and why. The prominent gods or idols are substances that alter your mood. April and I heard a news report that had to do with Taylor Swift. April commented, “People idolize her.” She’s right. They do. But there are other things, too. Work, relationships, focusing on good causes. Basically, idolatry is anything or anyone that comes before God.

It’s our nature to be prone to put something before ourselves other than God first. I think it is because we feel we need to see something or someone rather than have faith. We tend to put our trust in ourselves or others rather than in God. It’s like we have to have something tangible or feel like we are helping ourselves. It all comes down to trust and faith in a loving God even though we can’t see him. It’s more special when we witness his power and might in our lives because we can’t see him.

The very first commandment God gave us was:

No other gods, only me. Exo. 20:3 (MSG)

God knew that anything but him would only hurt, disappoint, and let us down. His love never fails. So where is your god made? Cast aside your false gods and accept the one and only true God. Get to know and fall in love with him as much as He is with you.

This Is Crazy

January 11, 2015 / Mark Brady / 1 Comment

I have been doing my reading of the bible from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament (The Message version). What a good book loaded with adventure, wisdom, and even humor. In chapter 44, Isaiah writes about idols.

Isa 44:9 All those who make no-god idols…and what they work so hard at making is nothing. Their little puppet-gods see nothing and know nothing–they’re total embarrassments! Isa 44:10 Who would bother making gods that can’t do anything, that can’t “god”? Isa 44:11 Watch all the no-god worshipers hide their faces in shame. Watch the no-god makers slink off humiliated when their idols fail them. Get them out here in the open. Make them face God-reality. Isa 44:13 The woodworker draws up plans for his no-god, traces it on a block of wood. He shapes it with chisels and planes into human shape–a beautiful woman, a handsome man, ready to be placed in a chapel. Isa 44:14 He first cuts down a cedar, or maybe picks out a pine or oak, and lets it grow strong in the forest, nourished by the rain. Isa 44:15 Then it can serve a double purpose: Part he uses as firewood for keeping warm and baking bread; from the other part he makes a god that he worships–carves it into a god shape and prays before it. Isa 44:16 With half he makes a fire to warm himself and barbecue his supper. He eats his fill and sits back satisfied with his stomach full and his feet warmed by the fire: “Ah, this is the life.” Isa 44:17 And he still has half left for a god, made to his personal design–a handy, convenient no-god to worship whenever so inclined. Whenever the need strikes him he prays to it, “Save me. You’re my god.” Isa 44:18 Pretty stupid, wouldn’t you say? Don’t they have eyes in their heads? Are their brains working at all? Isa 44:19 Doesn’t it occur to them to say, “Half of this tree I used for firewood: I baked bread, roasted meat, and enjoyed a good meal. And now I’ve used the rest to make an abominable no-god. Here I am praying to a stick of wood!” Isa 44:20 This lover of emptiness, of nothing, is so out of touch with reality, so far gone, that he can’t even look at what he’s doing, can’t even look at the no-god stick of wood in his hand and say, “This is crazy.”

We don’t see too many people making physical idols these days, well some religions still do, but in our time most put “things” before the one true God. Things like careers, power, money, fame, relationships, etc. Praying, hoping and trusting that these things will bring them happiness, but they don’t. Give up your hope in these “things” and begin to pray to the God who sees you, knows you, and loves you. Then act like you believe and trust in Him. Give Him time to work in your life. Doing so is not crazy!