“They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow” (Hosea 7:16).
STRAIGHT AND TRUE
A faulty bow is a problem for the archer; they take their aim but however much skill the bowman has they will miss their target if their bow is faulty. The arrows skew off at a tangent missing their target.
The Lord wants us to be straight and true; he will shoot us through the straight and the narrow.
The trouble was that the Israelites flitted this way and that, they didn’t stay true.
“Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless—now calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria” (Hos 7:11). Looking everywhere except where they should look. Reaching out to everyone rather than he who can help them. In God’s eyes they were “senseless”. They couldn’t sense the moving of God’s Spirit in their lives.
They were over balanced, unable to stay upright: “Ephraim is a cake not turned” (Hos 7:8). Their sins pulled them over, they couldn’t be righteous even if they tried.
“They practice deceit” (Hos 7:1). The Lord has not made us for dishonesty but for truth. When we veer away from truth we are like the faulty bow that won’t reach its desired target.
And that’s what sin is, a missing of the target. The main Greek word for "sin" is hamartia, which translates as "missing the mark". It essentially means to fail or to miss the intended target. And that’s the state of each of us, having inherited our fallen nature from our forefathers. But praise God, we are new creations in Christ and are called to keep our eyes true—"fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Heb 12:2).
So in Christ we become a good and faithful bow that God can use. As we look to him we walk in a manner where God can use us. We follow Christ and walk straight and true because he is straight and true. “He was faithful to the one who appointed him” (Heb 3:2).
The Lord has not made us for unrighteousness, but to be useful in his service. Jesus has cleansed us and we have been “made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Tim 2:21).
And let’s be sure that the Lord will have work for each one of us to do: “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10).
We pray and ask for God’s help that we will not be slack in God’s good work.