Hosea part 3 – “ABANDONED”

Posted by David Ward on 23/01/2021
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Hosea – the tough and tender prophet

Sometimes it’s in the times we feel abandoned, our times of darkness, despair and desperation as we face the consequences of things we’ve done, that we are able to see most clearly…

Read Hosea 2: 2-8

These are harsh words.

Time has passed. Gomer has moved out, abandoning her husband and her children. Verses 2-5 read like an ancient bill of divorce, removing the ex-wife’s right to food, protection, shelter, even clothing. After all, she seems to be getting all these things from the “other lovers” she’s run off to anyway. The prophet reminds us that this is a picture of Israel’s relationship with God. They have long-since forgotten that all they have and are comes from God, the one who has cared for them and provided for them.

God may have been abandoned but he will not give up on his love for Israel. It seems that God will prevent Israel from pursuing the relationships with other nations and the idols that have taken his place. She too will know what it feels like to be abandoned. It’s at that moment that she realises. “I might as well return…”

I hear echoes of this story in a story Jesus told about a Lost Son. Partied out, abandoned by his good-time friends and down in the muck of the pigsty, the Bible says he, ‘came to his senses’ and started the journey back to home, father and a celebration.

This story is my story and your story. We were far from God, living for ourselves when he came looking for us. God came to us in the times when we had lost enough faith in our own ability to fix things for us to be open-hearted to our need of him. He didn’t come to rebuke, but to rescue us and restore our lost relationship with him.

Maybe you’ve never taken the step of coming back to the God who loves you. Maybe you don’t really know that much about Jesus’ rescue mission to planet Earth which made it possible. Take time during this week to talk to someone you know who is a follower of Jesus that you trust. Talk to God…ask him to show himself to you in a fresh way and tell him that you want to know and follow him.

Or perhaps you know that although you used to have a really close relationship with God you have moved further and further away. Now is the time to put things right. Talk to God, tell him that you’re sorry you spoiled the relationship and that you want to become God’s close friend again. You’ll find God has been with you all along, waiting longingly for this moment, and will hurry to meet you and restore your relationship with him.

And in both cases, the Bible says there’ll be a huge celebration in heaven.

Hosea part 2 – “RESTORED”

Posted by David Ward on 22/01/2021
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Hosea – the tough and tender prophet

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.

Hosea part 1 – “CALLED”

Posted by David Ward on 21/01/2021
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Hosea – the tough and tender prophet

One of the exciting things about being a follower of Jesus is that we are called to work alongside God as he carries out his plans for the world. But maybe sometimes the things God asks us to do are difficult and costly…

Read Hosea 1: 1-2

Hosea was called by God to be a prophet to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Being a prophet in those days sometimes involved being called to do all sorts of “prophetic actions” to illustrate the words of the prophecy.

For Hosea Gods call meant accepting the call to marry an unfaithful wife and set up a dysfunctional family…maybe none of us has been asked to accept anything quite like that as part of our calling…

Then there‘s the story of Ananias in Acts 9: 10-16. Ananias is a follower of Jesus who lives in Damascus. He’s heard that Saul is coming to town to arrest anyone who follows Jesus, and Saul’s frightening reputation has come before him. God tells him to go and meet the very man he’s afraid of, and Ananias does not have the benefit of knowing about Saul’s dramatic meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Moses, Gideon, Mary, the Disciples, Paul…the Bible is full of stories about God’s not-always-easy call.

Many years ago, l heard God’s call to give up a happy and successful career in teaching to go and join a team working for British Youth for Christ, with no salary on offer and needing to move my family away to the north of England. I’d like to be able to say that everything has been amazing since…but it certainly has been exciting and fulfilling and that one move led to many other opportunities to work with God in some amazing – and tough – places.

In each case, the call was important. It demonstrated God’s confidence in the one called and their willingness to respond. It also witnesses the fact that God does not just call “heroes”; he calls the ordinary and sometimes the timid. Our part is to trust in God’s goodness and faithfulness, and get on with living out our call, in the strength he gives.

Ask God to remind you today of someone you know who may be struggling with God’s call to them. Ask him to give you wisdom and words to speak into their life. Get in touch and offer your prayerful help to them at this time.

Ask God to renew his call on your life, to give you a fresh sense of how significant your contribution is in his eyes and to, “equip you with all you need for doing his will” (Hebrews 13: 21)