He destroys you, O Israel, for you are against me, against your helper.
– Hosea 13:9
Oh, just let that indictment soak in. God is speaking to his people, saying, “You are experiencing destruction. Why? For you are against God, against your Helper”. So just think about this. God, the omnipotent, all-powerful, omnibenevolent. The all-good, all-wise, all-loving God wants to be your Helper. This is what God is saying to his people here in Hosea 13. And you’re against God, who wants to help you.
Hosea 13:9 reveals God as our Helper.
Now bring that indictment into your life and my life. Think of the foolishness of how you and I are prone to be against God. To go against God as if we know better than God what is best for our lives, or we know better than God what is best for the world.
Get the picture for every one of us today. To see God, the omnipotent, omnibenevolent, all-powerful, all-loving, all-good, all-wise God overall wants to help you experience life today, wants to help me experience life to the full today. He wants to help us. He’s our Helper. The fact that God calls himself our Helper is astounding. And what’s more astounding than that, though, is that we are prone to refuse him as our Helper. We’re prone to go against God and his gracious, merciful help in our lives.
So let’s not do that in any way today. Let’s seek God and trust God as our Helper. Know God as our Helper. Enjoy God as our Helper. Press in toward God as our Helper. Do not walk away from him. Don’t go against him. God, we pray that you would forgive us for all the ways in each of our lives we have gone against you as our Helper and the ways we are prone even today to go against you as our Helper.
Hosea 13:9 encourages us to seek God’s help.
And so we pray. It feels ironic, oh God, for your help. This is why we pray, because we need your help, and we don’t want to go against your help. God, we pray. Save us from ourselves and all of our tendencies to go against your help. Help us to trust you and your help in our lives. Lord, help us to believe your Word. Help us to follow your ways.
Help us to obey your commands. With the help you provide, your Holy Spirit in us, strengthening us and comforting us, and giving us wisdom and leading us and guiding us, and directing us and protecting us. God, we pray for your help in all these ways. We seek your help in all these ways, and we pray that you would keep us, deliver us, save us from foolishness, from every way, turning against your help, refusing your help.
God, help us to see you and trust you, seek you, and follow you as our Helper all day long today. And we praise you for your promise to help us, for calling yourself our Helper. God, this is awesome beyond words that you are a Helper, and we need your help in so many ways today. I just think of all the different people praying right now in my own life. So many ways we need your help, and others around us need your help. So we pray for your help in our lives. We pray for your help in others’ lives, and we pray that you would use us to point others to you as their Helper.
Help us to encourage others today, that you stand ready to help them when they look to you and trust in you.
Prayer for the Afar People
And God, we pray for the Afar people of Djibouti and Ethiopia and Eritrea, for 2.8 million of them who’ve never heard the good news of your help for them. To forgive them of all their sins, to restore them to relationship with you through Jesus’ death on the cross for them, his resurrection from the grave for them, that you have eternal help to give them.
God, we pray that your church would get the gospel by your help to the Afar people of East Africa, that they might be reached with your help, with your love, with your grace, with your mercy, with your salvation. Oh God, we pray all this in light of your word in Hosea 13:9 to you as our Helper. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
