Yahweh, God of Heaven’s Armies, Yahweh is how he should be remembered. So now, come back to your God, carefully doing steadfast love and justice, continually depending on him. Hosea 12:6-7 Author’s translation
If personal gain is made the highest end truth cannot stand. Neither can marriage, nor private property, nor ordinary human relations. The entire Ten Commandments are an attack on personal gain. Interestingly, the French nobleman, Alexis de Toqueville, visiting America in the early 19th century, said that he had never seen a society where people were more devoted to personal gain than the Americans. What kept that in check, he said, was independent newspapers and the many voluntary association (clubs) among which he included churches.
God has designed the universe for unselfishness. So, if “I” is primary, the world comes apart. That is so because making “I” the source and center of all things is the first, and greatest, of all lies; the rest all stem from that one. Yet, if there is now any primal instinct in the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, that is it: my comfort, my pleasure, my possessions, my survival. This is what is described in Genesis 6:5: “The imaginations of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually.” Oh, for the “new heavens and the new earth.”
So what is the solution? It is to have such an encounter with the Living God that “I” is no longer the center and source of all things; Hosea 12:6-7 tells us that Yahweh, “I Am,” the one who has all the powers of heaven at this beck and call, is that center and source. The prophet urges us never to forget that. Constantly remembering who he and who we are, we can trust him both to determine our needs and to supply them. Filled with that confidence of his care and supply, we no longer need to focus all attention on ourselves, but can give ourselves away in love and justice to those around us, particularly to those who are weaker than we.
