Daily Devotion 5th October 2018

Such bluntness is not fashionable today. In decades past, people flocked to the Hellfire and damnation preachers to hear the drunkard, the glutton, the gossip denounced, and their Hellish destination depicted – gnashing teeth and all.  These days this type of preaching is much less fashionable.

Samuel was very clear; the people had sinned. But there’s no ‘I told you so’ here, no gloating over someone else’s downfall. Samuel stands with the sinning community and plays his part in their restoration. For there is restoration.

Yes, they had sinned. Yes, the consequences would follow them through hundreds of years of bad kings, idolatry and eventual sweeping away to Exile. But yes, God was with them. He did not abandon them because they had messed up (and that is seriously Good News!), but called them to turn back to him again, and again.

I am much more like the disobedient, inconstant, faithless children of Israel than I like to admit. Have I today loved the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength? Have l loved my neighbour as myself? Nope.

God did not soft-pedal the Israelites’ sin. Neither does he soft-pedal ours. He does not sweep it under the carpet and pretend it never happened. But neither does he reject us as no-hope failures. He knows that (to quote ‘Frozen’) “Everyone’s a bit of a fixer-upper”, and in his love and mercy, takes on the job of fixing us up.