Devotional meditation

This chapter is exceptionally hopeful as it started with the remembrance of how Judah / Israel was punished for their sins where God did not relent because of the wrath provoked by the wickedness and sins of Israel. God is still faithful like a husband waiting for the return of His bride / wife to Him which was recorded and experienced in the book of Hosea. The remnants of Israel after the exile were being called to return to land of Judah / Israel and rebuild the temple of the Lord. It seem impossible to them that they felt discouraged but God promised them that it’s going to work. They were once a curse to other nations but were being restored to become a blessing again to nations as they were once called.

However, there’s a condition in this restoration.

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Zechariah 8:16-17

These are the things that you shall do: speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace, 17 do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these are things that I hate, says the LORD.”

This is a manifestation of one who is truly repentant and is serious about seeking the Lord, our God so it is the work of obedience and from faith out of love in response to God’s mercy and faithfulness.

There’s a few illustration that can be use in this picture, one is the husband with an adulterous wife recorded in Hosea, another is the relationship in between a parent and a child recorded in the Luke 15 of how the youngest son wanted his inheritance before the death of the father and then spent it all on dissolute living, the father gave him what he wanted and when the son repented, the father embrace him into his home saying that he was lost and is found. God’s heart is just like the father who loves His children and want the best for them. So when God knows that one is truly repentant and humble, understood the purpose of the discipline by the Lord, return to Him with sincerity with a willing heart not because of manipulation of trying to earn His love for one cannot earn love, then God will also turn to them and restore them.