Hosea 10:12 (NASB)
12 Sow with a view to righteousness,
Reap in accordance with kindness;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord
Until He comes to rain righteousness on you.
These words were directed by the Old Testament prophet Hosea to God’s people who had strayed far from His ways, yet they express so well what we should be doing during Advent. It is time for us to seek the Lord—whether for the first time or for a renewed relationship with Him. We must break up the untilled ground of our heart; unless the ground of a field is tilled, it cannot grow a crop, and unless the ground of our hearts is tilled, it cannot grow a crop of righteousness planted by the Master Gardener, Jesus Christ, who Himself paid for our sin on the cross and who alone can make us righteous by imparting His righteousness to us.
Lord, plow the ground of my heart. Root out all evil—hatred, selfishness, idolatry, the lusts of the flesh—and plant the righteousness of Jesus in the tilled soil. We ask this in the name of He who will come again with glory. Amen.
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