Zephaniah

Have you read Zephaniah, the book of the Bible? Zephaniah was a prophet. A tough job when the Israelites spent more time rebelling against God than listening to their prophets. It is a very short book, having only three chapters. Much is spent on warning about the coming "day of the Lord" when there will be destruction and God's wrath poured out. This is a hard thing for me to grasp. The God of the New Testament is so full of love that all the talk of wrath and destruction seems so out of character.
I want to think about some of the passages and see if I can find hope and Jesus in this hard book. After introducing Zephaniah and his reason for speaking ("1:1 The word of the Lord ...came to Zephaniah...) it quickly gets into the heart of the matter. (Zeph 1:2-3): "I will sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,"
declares the LORD.

"I will sweep away both men and animals;
       I will sweep away the birds of the air
       and the fish of the sea.
       The wicked will have only heaps of rubble
       when I cut off man from the face of the earth,"
       declares the LORD.

See what I mean by hard? Where is the mercy and grace? Well, God called upon Zephaniah to give this warning so I'd have to say that was God's mercy and grace. He could have just "[swept] away both men and animals....and birds ...and fish". But he didn't. He called upon Zephaniah to give the warning to call them to repentance, to give them opportunity to change. The Old Testament is full of these calls to repentance and opportunities to depend on God. Seems God gave them multiple opportunities.

So here's the first bit of hope. The first lesson of Zephaniah is that God gives us repeated opportunities when he calls out to us using those around us, strangers, family, friends, acquaintances. We need to look for these nudges and calls for change. We need to be thankful and submissive when they arrive. We need to appreciate a God who loves us enough to tell us what He expects and gives us time to comply.

Thank you, God for wanting us to be with You enough that You give us repeated warnings and opportunities. Help us listen and be attentive, then act according to Your will. Amen.

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