Forgive me!

Its (Israel) people don't realize I am watching them. Their sinful deeds are all around them; I see them all!"My people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners, picking up their evil ways. Now they have become as worthless as a half-baked cake! Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength, but they don't even know it. Israel is like an old man with graying hair, unaware of how weak and old he has become."How terrible it will be for my people who have deserted me! Let them die, for they have rebelled against me. I wanted to redeem them, but they have only spoken lies about me. They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts. Instead, they sit on their couches and wail. They cut themselves, begging foreign gods for crops and prosperity. "I trained them and made them strong, yet now they plot evil against me. They look everywhere except to heaven, to the Most High. They are like a crooked bow that always misses its target.

Hosea 7:2, 8, 9, 13-16 NLT

Father, forgive me for my tendencies toward worldliness, pride, selfishness and rebellion. Father today the church speaks so much on grace and I know that I don't fully understand your grace, but what I do know is that your grace does not mean that you look the other way when I sin. You give me grace, but that doesn't mean that I do not have to be accountable for my sin and wrong choices. It doesn't mean that I can become like the world and expect it to not have great influences over me. Oh God! You call me to holiness! You call me to have a heart that only seeks You and yet I so often run after the things of this world

How can we possibly believe that a Holy God will look the other way as His children continue to pursue the things of the world! We have forgotten our first love! The God of the Old and New Testament is the same God! Just as He disciplined His chosen people, He will discipline His church! Heb 12:5-11 reminds us that the Lord disciplines those He loves. If we are not disciplined then we are illegitimate children. God, our HOLY Father, disciplines us for our good, so that we may share HIS holiness. Being disciplined and trained by God brings forth peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Oh God give me a heart that seeks You alone. Show me those areas in my heart and life that pursue worldliness. Forgive me for not following hard after You and forgetting that you call me to live a life set apart from the world. God my heart is so far from you. Help me to see what is from you and what is of the world. I cannot trust my own heart for it is so deceived by my own desires and lust of the world.