Joel: The Day of the Lord is coming!
Devotions based on Week 2 of The Prophets: Joel (WATCH HERE)
“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near…” (Joel 3:14).
The day of the Lord.
This phrase is often used for a day of reckoning for God’s people. Connected with the day of the Lord is usually a call to repentance and for hearts to turn back to him before the physical or natural disaster takes place.
For Joel and his readers, it was the plague of locusts. However, as most prophecies do, there is often an immediate fulfillment during or close to the time of the prophet, as well as a pointing forward to Christ’s first coming in Bethlehem and then ultimately his second coming at the last day of the earth.
To be sure, the Spirit gave and preserved the words of Joel for us today to be aware of and ready for the “Day of the Lord.” The Spirit of God wanted our hearts to be oriented to the Lord and resting firmly in the confidence of faith in Jesus as Savior.
Because at the time of Christ’s return, there will be a public statement of decision. Jesus teaches this in Matthew 25:31-46: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
The day of the Lord will be a sobering exhibit of God’s justice. All who have rejected him as Savior and shown it by a lack of love and service to others will not spend an eternity with him. Those that have faith in Jesus and have shown it through a life of love and service will be welcomed into the realm of heaven.
The blessing is the Lord through Joel and Jesus let us know it is coming. We have time to prepare and be ready. How are we ready?
Joel speaks of that too: (2:32) And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved;…
There is nothing more important to be ready for the Day of the Lord than to call on the name of the Lord in faith. For only in the Lord is salvation. Only in the Lord are we ready for the Day of the Lord.
Apply: The reminder of Christ’s second coming is a call to faith and a call to put the Lord first in all aspects of life. What needs to shift in your life to put these priorities in place and be ready for the second coming of Jesus?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your love that tells us of the Day you are planning to return. While we don’t know the when, we know you want us to be ready. Draw us close to you and empower us to live for you with all the days you give us. Amen.
Joel: When Life Wakes You Up!
Devotions based on Week 2 of The Prophets: Joel (WATCH HERE)
Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.(Joel 1:15)
“Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near.” (Joel 2:1)
The prophet Joel steps into a time of devastation. Israel is reeling from a natural disaster, a locust plague that has stripped the land bare and threatened the nation’s survival. Yet Joel sees something even deeper at work: this is not just a crisis of agriculture, but a wake up call that the Lord is sending his people. There is a spiritual alarm going off. The “Day of the Lord” is near.
For the people of Joel’s day, the “Day of the Lord” was both a present reality and a future warning. God was using current events to get his people’s attention and bring awareness to the spiritual condition of their hearts. The locust plague led to facing the reality of one’s mortality which naturally leads to reflecting on one’s standing with a holy God.
The reaction when disaster struck was naturally to grieve and mourn the tangible physical loss. In Joel’s culture, that was done by the tearing of one’s garments. However, the purpose of the plague was not to lament the destruction of crops, livelihoods and wealth, but rather to lead the people to (Joel 2:13) Rend your heart and not your garments.
God is using the plague and the message of Joel to call His people to repentance. God interrupts life to lead his people to consider their relationship with him. This is not the act of a vengeful God, but rather a gracious interruption to turn hearts back to Him. “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning,” God says through Joel (Joel 2:12). This is not a call to mere emotion, but to a genuine reorientation of one’s heart back to the Lord.
Is it possible that God does the same thing today?
Yes it is.
We can get busy with life. We can be focused on ourselves, our family and our career. When life takes an unexpected turn with personal tragedy, natural disaster, or national tragedy we can wring our hands in worry, express frustration and anger at the Lord and others, or fear for what is to come.
But maybe it is just the Lord, in his grace, interrupting our lives to reorient our hearts back to him. Maybe he is allowing our health to decline so we find our strength in him. Maybe he allows our financial condition to change to remove the love of money from our hearts. Maybe he brings tragedy to our nation to lead us to remember he is in control.
Why?
Because he loves us enough to not lose our hearts to the transient, fleeting things of this world. He loves us enough to bring us back to see and love his heart of grace, mercy and peace. As Joel said, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me… for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Joel 2:12–13)
Remember when God gets your attention, it is to return your heart back to his.
Apply: How has God got your attention? What do you find in your heart to repent of? Return to the Lord to once again find his mercy and grace!
Prayer: Lord, awaken my heart. Let me not sleep through the urgency of these days. As I await the Day of the Lord, help me to live by Your Spirit, to repent quickly, and to witness boldly. Thank You for Your mercy that restores what sin and suffering have devoured. Prepare me to stand with joy when that Day comes. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Joel: What do I do when the unprecedented happens?
Devotions based on Week 2 of The Prophets: Joel (WATCH HERE)
Unprecedented.
This was the buzzword of 2020. It seemed like every other report about CoVid19 used the word “unprecedented.” The spread was unprecedented. The shutdowns were unprecedented. The economic downturn was “unprecedented.” The social distancing was “unprecedented.” The list could go on.
When something unusual happens it catches our attention. When the event has scope among many, it catches the nation and world’s attention.
The question is this, “When something unprecedented happens, how do we respond?
For the prophet Joel, the event that was unprecedented was an invasion of locusts. Here’s how the prophet begins his inspired message:
Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?
… What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten. (Joel 1:2,4)
When something rare or unusual happens, it is easy to recognize as unprecedented. However, the greater challenge is to understand how to respond to it. The event catches our attention, but is it a call to change direction?
For the prophet Joel and the people of Israel, it was. God desired the natural disaster of a swarm of locust to catch the attention of the people of Israel. They were in a state of spiritual apathy and drift. Their lives were comfortable in their material belongings and routines of life and commerce. Spiritually they were asleep.
So God uses the “unprecedented” swarm of locusts to wake them up.
The drunkards: Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. (Joel 1:5)
The priests: The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord. (Joel 1:9)
The farmers: Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; (Joel 1:11)
When life is altered by natural disasters, personal catastrophes, or national events, it is worth taking a moment to reflect and ask, “For what reason is God getting my attention.”
We may wonder “why?” it might take an “unprecedented” or large impact event, but perhaps these wake up calls were insightful.
Drunkards depended on wine to get drunk. The locusts destroyed the vineyards and wine couldn’t be produced. Is there a reason for a drunkard to pause and wonder why the wine has been snatched from his lips?
Priests, who minister before the Lord, were absent of grain and drink offerings because all the grain was eaten. Is there a reason for a priest to pause and reflect on why God might allow the grain to be destroyed?
The farmers who watched their crops methodically be eaten by the swarms of locust and the next year of seed destroyed, is there a reason for God to call them to pause and reflect in despair over what was happening?
Yes. Yes there is.
In time of disaster, there is only one way to turn: Away from the comforts of life, the empty rituals of religion and the dependence on profession and profit and back to the LORD.
For when the heart drifts from the Lord, the Lord allows the unprecedented to draw those same hearts back to himself.
Apply: As a country, we have experienced some horrific events in this past week (senseless train stabbing, school shooting, Charlie Kirk assassination and the remembrance of terror attacks in 2001. Take time to reflect today and ask, “For what reason is God getting my attention?”
Prayer: Lord, we don’t like the uncomfortable nature of personal and national calamities. However, knowing your heart of love and mercy, you are using them to call us back to you. Show me the way back to you. AMEN.
Hosea: A living example of God’s faithfulness!
Devotions based on Week 1 of The Prophets: Hosea (WATCH HERE)
“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.’” (Hosea 3:1 NIV)
It’s hard to love someone who doesn’t love you back. It’s hard to be faithful to someone who is unfaithful to you. Yet God called Hosea to be a living example of faithfulness to an unfaithful spouse.
Most prophets proclaimed God’s Word with their lips. Hosea, however, proclaimed it with his life. God called him to marry Gomer, a woman who would be unfaithful to him. Hosea’s marriage became a living reflection of Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord. Every betrayal, every heartbreak, every public humiliation Hosea endured was meant to mirror God’s grief over His people’s idolatry.
Most of us would resist the thought of marrying someone who will betray us. But Hosea obeyed, not because he relished the pain, but because God was showing the world what His love looks like: faithful, steadfast, pursuing even the unfaithful.
When Gomer left Hosea, it wasn’t just a broken marriage; it was a sermon acted out before Israel. Hosea’s heartbreak was God’s heartbreak. Israel had run after idols, made alliances with pagan nations, and traded covenant loyalty for fleeting pleasures.
And yet, Hosea’s story doesn’t end in despair. God commands Hosea to go again, to find his unfaithful wife, to buy her back, and to love her once more (Hosea 3:1–2). In doing so, Hosea lived out the relentless, redeeming love of God, a love that refuses to let go, even when betrayed.
Hosea’s love for Gomer points us to a bigger reality: God’s love for His people in Christ. Like Gomer, we chase after other loves such as money, approval, pleasure, or power. Spiritually, we commit adultery whenever we love something more than God.
Like Hosea, God comes after us, not to punish us, but to redeem us.
The Apostle Paul writes, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8). Jesus is the greater Hosea. He doesn’t just buy us back with silver and grain; He redeems us with His very blood.
Peter echoes Hosea’s message: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10). What was true for Israel through Hosea is true for us through Christ.
We are challenged to live out the faithfulness of God. This past week has reminded us of how desperately our world needs the truth, the hope, the faithfulness of God. An innocent woman stabbed on a train, a voice of biblical truth and worldview assassinated, a remembrance of evil that struck America 24 years ago all scream to the broken unfaithfulness of the world around. Hosea’s life and message challenge us. He modeled God’s faithfulness. He kept proclaiming God’s truth in a culture that mocked it. He kept loving when it hurt. He kept obeying when it cost him. He kept his heart grounded in the love, mercy and faithfulness of our God. He modeled for us that to be God’s people means to reflect His covenant love:
- In marriage: honoring promises even when it’s hard.
- In friendships: showing up consistently, not only when convenient.
- In our walk with God: worshiping Him alone, resisting the idols that call for our hearts.
- In our world: Speaking the truth in love, without fear and without compromise.
Faithfulness isn’t easy. Hosea knew that firsthand. But he also knew the God whose faithfulness never fails. So do we.
Apply: Ask yourself: Where is God calling me to live out His faithfulness today? Is there a strained relationship that needs the first step of forgiveness? Is there a temptation pulling me away from God that I need to resist? Is God calling me to show steady love in a place where others would give up?
Prayer: Faithful God, thank You for your prophet Hosea, who lived out Your unrelenting love in the midst of heartbreak. Forgive us for the times we have been unfaithful to You. Thank You for pursuing us in Christ and making us Your people again. Help us reflect Your enduring faithfulness in our relationships, our commitments, and our daily life. Amen.
Hosea: Lo-Ammi “Not My People”
Devotions based on Week 1 of The Prophets: Hosea (WATCH HERE)
Hosea 1:8 After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. 9 Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God.
Few passages in the Bible sound as devastating as this one. God commands Hosea to name his child Lo-Ammi, “Not My People.” In this name, the covenant relationship between God and His chosen nation seems to be broken. Israel’s persistent idolatry, spiritual adultery, and rejection of His Word had led to this chilling declaration: “You are not my people, and I am not your God.”
In a living illustration, Hosea’s son captures the seriousness of unfaithfulness. Israel had exchanged the glory of the living God for the lifeless idols of Baal. They pursued self-reliance, political alliances, and worldly pleasures rather than trusting in the Lord. The covenant, which should have been marked by loyalty and love, was trampled by their rebellion.
God had warned them many times. In Deuteronomy 28:62–64, Moses spoke of the curses that would come if Israel abandoned the Lord: “You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number… because you did not obey the Lord your God.” Their loss of identity as “God’s people” was not an arbitrary punishment, rather it was the natural consequence of rejecting Him.
It is not hard to see parallels in our own world. We live in a time when loyalty to God is often traded for loyalty to self, career, wealth, or pleasure. Many still say “We are God’s people” but live in ways that contradict His Word. The spirit of Lo-Ammi echoes whenever our lives declare, “We do not need God; we can be our own masters.”
And if we’re honest, this is not just about “the world out there.” Each of us has moments when our lives do not reflect God’s covenant love. We may trust in money more than His promises, in approval more than His grace, or in our own wisdom rather than His Word. If God were to deal with us strictly according to our faithfulness, we too would deserve to be named Lo-Ammi.
But here is the stunning grace of God: even when He declares judgment, He always holds out the hope of restoration. Just a few verses later, Hosea prophesies:
“Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’” (Hosea 1:10)
God’s faithfulness is stronger than our unfaithfulness. Israel’s sin was great, but God’s mercy was greater. He promised to one day restore the relationship, not because Israel had earned it, but because His covenant love could not be broken.
The Apostle Peter quotes this very passage in 1 Peter 2:10 to describe the church: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” Through Christ, God takes the Lo-Ammi of our sin and replaces it with Ammi—“My People.” In Jesus’ blood, we who were outside of God’s people have been made God’s people.
Apply: So how do we live this out? We live as people who belong to Him. That means: Rejecting idols—anything that takes first place in our hearts. Trust God’s promises, even when the world offers easier paths. Living with gratitude that we are “children of the living God.”
Prayer: Gracious Father, we confess that our hearts are prone to wander, like Israel of old. Too often we chase after other loves and forget that we belong to You. Yet we thank You that in Christ, You have made us Your people again. Help us to live in the joy and security of being Your children. Amen.