We must never stop thanking God. “And why? Because he’s good, because his love lasts.”TM He wants the best for us. He gives us instructions on right living! “You’re one happy man when you do what’s right, one happy woman when you form the habit of justice.”TM God made it that way!
We haven’t always lived right. Like Israel, we too have taken “your wonders for granted, forgot your great and wonderful love.”TM But you “…saved them from a life of oppression..”TM Even when we had to have our own way, had to have exactly what we wanted. Just like Israel. They got what they wanted, “but along with it they got an empty heart.”TM
We’re just as bad as they are. “They cast in metal a bull calf at Horeb and worshipped the statue they’d made. They traded the Glory for a cheap piece of sculpture—a grass-chewing bull! They forgot God, their very own Savior…”TM We’re just like them. “They found fault with the life they had…”TM just like us! “They worshipped their idols.”TM We do too! “Their way of life stank to high heaven; they lived like whores.”TM We do too sometimes.
“Over and over God rescued them, but they never learned…”TM We’re just like them in many ways! But, we must never stop thanking God because in spite of it all, “when God saw the trouble they were in and heard their cries for help, …immense with love, took them by the hand. He poured out his mercy on them.”TM