I Was Once Married

And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel . . . And the people of Israel did secretly against the LORD their God things that were not right. 2 Kings 17:7-9

What if you got married, taking a vow to spend the rest of your life with someone, but then you just kind of forgot about that vow? What if you and your spouse committed to a faithful relationship, but you continued to live as you had previously, dating others and pursuing the single life? You wouldn’t stay married very long.

To remain married and to have a successful marriage, you must recognize that making the vow isn’t something you do once and then walk away. The marriage vow, rather, is just the beginning of a relationship in which you and your spouse commit to each other and then spend the rest of your lives pursuing that vow. For marriage to be successful, you must continue to work at it.

So it is with our faith. Faith isn’t just a thing we did once a long time ago – asking Jesus into our heart. Rather, for our faith to be real, it must be an ongoing relationship that we continue to work at daily. If we fail to invest in it, our relationship with God grows distant. This is illustrated in today’s passage, which tells of the reign of Hoshea, the last king of Israel. Hoshea was simply the last in a long line of Israelite kings who forgot that God led his people out of Egyptian slavery – That happened 700 years ago! Like his predecessors, Hoshea wandered from his covenant with God, pursuing false idols. Eventually, God said, Enough, allowing his people to be conquered by the Assyrians.

If we want a successful marriage, we make a vow and then work at it for the rest of our lives. Likewise, if we desire an authentic faith, then we must commit to it, investing in our relationship with God every day. Unfortunately, many of us as Christians pick up our Bible only on Sundays, living most of our lives drifting from God. If we truly believe God is the most important relationship of our lives, then we must live like it, pursuing that relationship every day.