Sometimes God breaks into our lives and shows us just how far from him our lives have become, whether by deliberate choice or by carelessly drifting with the surrounding culture…but he never challenges us without giving us a way back and hope for a better future.
Hosea 1:10 to 2: 1
Hosea and Gomer have three children together. They are given strange names which illustrate Israel’s broken relationship with God. Israel have broken their Covenant agreement with God. They have been unfaithful by breaking the 10 Commandments, by committing social injustice and by the idolatrous worship of other Gods. They have failed to resemble God, to faithfully demonstrate his character to the surrounding nations. Unfaithfulness to God and living our way instead of his always brings consequences.
So God says that as they are behaving like all the other nations, he’ll remove his special, covenant relationship and allow bad things to happen to them. They’ve chosen to step outside of God’s caring relationship, so instead of security and safety, they face defeat and destruction. Israel have got used to hearing this message of judgement from Amos, a contemporary of Hosea, who also prophesied to the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BC. So what Hoses prophecies next catches them completely off balance.
God effectively says, “Israel, you’ve sinned against me, you’ve compromised my holiness and my reputation among the other nations. Despite all that, whatever you may have to go through as a consequence of your actions, when it’s over I want you to come back to me…that’s how much I love you. People will know that you are my children again, and when you come back it won’t be as a nation divided north and south; you will again become one nation.” Amidst the judgement on sinful behaviour, and the consequences of their turning away from God there is a message of hope, because the God who is holy is also totally and utterly loving.
To bring the message up to date, what a wonderful picture of the church…Jews and Gentiles, who were once estranged and divided, united through adoption into God’s new family, through Jesus. The apostle Paul quotes from Hosea in Romans 9 : 25-26, when he shares how the Gentiles have also received mercy from God, and later on in Galatians 3: 28, he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Take a long, hard look at your life. Where have you ceased to resemble Jesus?
Are there areas where Jesus is no longer Lord? Have you given in to the subtle and subversive desire for money, sex or power? Are you failing to show equal mercy and justice in the way you treat all people? Do you have “favourite” sins that have become such habits and so much part of you that your conscience has been dulled and you no longer realise you do them?
Remember, however far you have moved away from God and his purpose in you life he loves you with a deep, crazy love, and longs to show you grace, forgive you and welcome you back into a close relationship, and give you what you need to be able to live for him in the future.
Pilgrim Traveller 