Where is Your Desire

“Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the Lord”. Hosea 5:4 NIV

“The wicked things that the people have done keep them from returning to their God. They have a spirit of prostitution, and they don’t know the Lord”. Hosea 5:4 God’s Word Translation.

This explains that the people of Israel could not return to God because their sinful habits and love for idols controlled their hearts. They ignored God’s ways and chose a “spirit of prostitution,” meaning they chased after worldly things instead of knowing and obeying the Lord.

Can someone lose their Salvation? Can someone lose God? Maybe we are considering the wrong question.

What if the real danger isn’t losing God, but losing your desire to return to Him?

While I fully believe that God never shuts the door of Salvation. The Gate is always open, and the Shepherd will always let into the fold any sheep that knows His voice.

This verse is telling you that your habits and desires may get you to a time where you do not desire to hear the voice of the Shephard.

This doesn’t mean that the Shepherd shut the gate on their salvation. It means their actions were the result of their choices and those choices changed their desires and changed them. The sheep stop desiring to come into the fold.

Even when the Shepherd left the flock and went to find the one that was lost.  That Sheep did not want to return to the fold because it thought the grass was greener where it was. It said, “I am fine on my own”.  I don’t need a Shepherd. I can find green grass and nice water on my own.

The desire to listen to the Shepherds voice was no longer there. 

This is how sin works.  What begins as a decision slowly becomes a pattern. Patterns begin to shape desires. And over time, those desires change our identity.

You have heard me say that you cannot eat one Lays Potato Chip.  One chip leads to eating a whole bag.  Once you start you are destined to eat them all.

Once you have eaten the bag you no longer want the fruit of the Spirit. You are full of what the world has to offer, and you no longer have room for the guidance of the Shepherd.

This is the sin against the Holy Spirit.  Constantly not listening, not acknowledging the prompts and nudges from the Holy Spirit.

This does not mean that God is unwilling to forgive or offer Salvation. Both are always available. What this describes is an attitude of permanent, unrepentant rejection of God.  The Voice of the Shepherd is no longer reaching the internal parts of the brain.   

You keep wanting Control and will not listen the Shepards voice.

If you constantly choose to look for satisfaction in the wrong places, you cannot experience a close relationship with God. God wants a heart that acknowledges its mistakes and actively seeks Him.

Keep your eyes and ears on things above.  Not on worldly desires, news shows and the draw of social media and the internet.  You cannot hear the Holy Spirit when the noise of this world is drowning it out.

Shut it off! Be honest with yourself and ask what your desires are today.  The World or the Voice of the Spirit?

You cannot serve and listen to both.  You can only serve one master.

Prayers and Love for All.

Larry