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Obedience in Mediocrity vs. Sacrifice in Action

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Hosea 6:6 NET

6 For I delight in faithfulness, not simply in sacrifice;
I delight in acknowledging God, not simply in whole burnt offerings.

I’ve been learning this in an unhappily repetitive way lately. It’s come in the form of eager children and eager adults. People tend to really like to please you or really get your approval when it comes to doing things that they enjoy.

The bummer is when we have to do something for others that we don’t really enjoy, we aren’t so eager to serve them!

Take me and my timecard at work, for instance. (I’m throwing myself under the bus here, because the more I think of other people teaching me this, I realize I need to see how I am doing this myself!) It’s easy for me to come up with all kinds of cool new ways of doing stuff, of innovating new processes and thinking about how we can improve our systems.

But I can’t fill out my timecard.

It’s simple! It’s easy! It’s something I need to do FAITHFULLY!

But day in and day out, it’s easier for me to sacrifice and do all kinds of things that are above and beyond the call of duty than it is to be faithful in the little things that my work needs me to do and just fill out my ^&%#@! timecard.

This is where Hosea was. The Jewish people went out of their way to improve their burnt offerings and their festivals and their sacrifices. They probably had banners that said, “Torah 2.0: Commitment, Caring, and Charisma” or some such thing.

But they sucked at the tiny tasks that required daily faithfulness.

It’s just not exciting to do the small and simple things.
It’s just not exciting to go after a mediocre calling of being close to God in secret.
It’s just not exciting to walk in simple obedience to God without having an amazing sacrifice to show for it.

The thing is, God loves ME more than any sacrifice I bring. He knows me inside and out, with my twisted motives, my lazy-butt motivations and my desire for attention and glamour. I might as well come clean and not try to impress Him with any fancy sacrifices but just do the simple & mediocre things He calls me to do.

Because God’s mediocrity is greater than man’s excitement.

You Say That To All The Deities

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Hosea 2:11

 I will put an end to all her celebration:
her annual religious festivals,
monthly new moon celebrations,
and weekly Sabbath festivities –
all her appointed festivals.

Look at what is on this list–It’s all of the religious things that Israel was doing!

Somebody might say, “Wait, didn’t God ask them to do all of these religious things?” Yep, He did, but they were all for the reason of drawing closer to the one true God and they were doing these things for every deity on their list! They went all over looking for spiritual beings and the sacrifices or activities that would please them!

God is Jealous

There are a lot of people that don’t like the idea that God is a jealous God. The idea of being jealous or selfish seems controlling, limiting.

Honestly, I think people don’t like the idea of being controlled because they haven’t had somebody stick up for them. If you’ve been oppressed–and I mean really oppressed–and then you’ve had somebody step in and stick up for you, you appreciate jealousy.

Nobody likes to be the damsel in distress, but that’s what we are. Even our Christian books teach us how to be the manly-man hero and save our families/communities/churches that are the ones in distress. We are the ones that need to be saved, not the saviors. We are the ones that need spiritual acts done to us by our Lord, not the ones that need to do spiritual acts for our Lord.

May we end our religious hobbies and let our savior do what He is mighty to do–Save!