Return, your lover awaits

If you’ve never read the book of Hosea, I encourage you to go read it now! Hosea is such a beautiful book. If all you see when you read it is how God told Hosea to marry a woman He knew would be unfaithful time after time, then dear reader, I implore you to go back and read that book again and again. While you read, ask the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of your heart so that you can see God's character and heart beautifully displayed.

Here in this book, we can see the prophetic meaning of Hosea's marriage to Gomer for Israel. Right throughout the book we can see excerpts of Hosea's preaching of grace and judgment leading up to the fall of Israel in 722 BC.

I read this book and I asked a lot of questions! God, why would you have Hosea marry an unfaithful woman? Why would Hosea stay? Why did Hosea keep preaching to stiff-necked people? What was the point?

Here’s the truth: Hosea is utterly unique in one respect. I could never dream of marrying someone like Gomer. And When I look at myself, I sometimes wonder why God would still love someone like me. But that’s the unfathomable beauty of God’s heart and character - His covenant love and mercy are more powerful than our sin could ever be. God made Hosea live the tragedy of Israel's unfaithfulness by marrying a harlot. What follows is shocking because the idolatry of Israel is shocking. When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord.” So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son." As I said, I would never dream of marrying a harlot… but while I would never dream of doing that, in retrospect, I have most definitely prostituted my heart - many times!

It doesn’t matter what I or others think, in God’s eyes, everyone who forsakes the Lord is a Harlot. We are either faithfully married to Him or we are prostitutes. So how dare I ask, “how could Hosea have stayed?” And even then, If I had been there, I would have told Hosea to leave her. I would have talked him out of marrying her. But as I asked God to show me my heart, I realized that I’ve been a Gomer in so many ways; walking away from my Husbandman. I have prostituted my heart; chasing after other lovers; searching for satisfaction in places that cannot satisfy; drinking from broken cisterns; walking further and further away from my First Love.

If we get our kicks from somewhere else, then we commit great harlotry against God, and that was Israel's condition. And so God took Hosea and said, as it were, "Before I give you a word of judgment and grace, I am going to make you know what it's like to be married to an unfaithful wife. Go, marry a harlot!" Hosea obeys and his marriage is an acted-out parable of God's relation to Israel.

The story continues with Hosea preaching grace and judgment to a people that would not listen. They continued in their way and yet God had sympathy for them: “How can I give you up, Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred.” How? How is God like this?

O God, the depth of your love and mercy are unfathomable and inexhaustible. This book reveals deep truths about God’s character and purposes. While God should and does bring His justice on evil in this world, His ultimate purpose and heart is to heal and save His people. That’s his heart! He breaks and wounds but to heal and save us from our waywardness. This book gives me hope! God’s covenant love and mercy are more powerful than my sin! Though I often stray from my Beloved [and this is not something I desire to keep doing… “What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” - Romans 7:15] I have hope that His grace will cover me, and His love will keep pursuing me.

This kind of mercy should move us to repentance. The Lord’s kindness to us should cause us to return to Him and desire to love Him with our whole being. God is so wonderfully kind, tolerant and patient, and we shouldn’t take that for granted.

Come, dear reader, let us return to God, our First Love. Let us return to God and put away from our mouths the names of the baals. Let us return to Him and love Him with our whole being. Let us return and live in His sight; pursuing daily, deeper intimacy with Him. Come, dear reader, let us return to the One who eternally satisfies. Come, dear reader, let us do away with the things of this world and return to the One who deserves a faithful bride. Yes, God desires to have your whole heart. For if He has your whole heart, He has everything!

Go sit with the Lord and let Him further reveal the deep truths of this book to you.

Scriptures for meditation: Hosea; Romans 7:15; Romans 2:4