Hosea 9.15 observes, The LORD says, All their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels.

Gilgal was a holy place. It was where Joshua landed with the people of Israel when he miraculously crossed the Jordan river into the promised land. It was the place where Samuel the prophet would make the will of God known to those who needed His judgement.

Gilgal was where God changed His mind about Saul being king as a result of Saul disobeying God by offering the sacrifice only the priest was to perform. Perhaps it is this last act that Hosea refers to when describing the leaders history of rebellion.

What does God hate? God hates disobedience and self-sufficiency that ignores dependence upon Him. God hates it when we worship anything or anyone but Him including the worship of ourselves through self-indulgence, self-reliance and self-gratification.

This doesn’t mean we do nothing until God somehow moves our hands and feet toward His will like a Puppeteer working with a marionette. Not at all. We are to be doers of His will, workers in His harvest field, servants of His eternal kingdom.

God has given us minds to think and hands to build and feet to go so we are without excuse for doing nothing for His glory upon the earth. Yet, what we do must be for His glory in accord with His will revealed through the Scriptures. Our ends is His honor and praise on earth as it is in heaven while our means is His ways according to His nature revealed through His Word.

This is exactly how Jesus lived. Jesus Who is God made visible as He lived with us fully human yet fully God. Jesus was always at work even as His Father always has been at work yet Jesus did only what the Father willed for Him to do.

God’s problem with our independence is our self-reliance. We work for our own gain to receive praise for ourselves. We call upon Him only when we get into a problem we don’t know how to solve.

Our job is to work for God’s glory by doing God’s will on earth as it is in heaven resulting in God’s honor and praise declared by all people throughout the world.