Hosea

Today’s culture might best be described as promiscuous since little value is placed on faithfulness and loyalty even in the most intimate commitment of marriage. Women are encouraged to live a life of self-indulgence and pleasure rather than one of purpose. Even a woman who follows the Lord might struggle with living her life totally devoted to the one true God and thus fall into a form of spiritual promiscuity. What happens when you are not faithful to the Lord? Does He turn His back on you? The Lord does not forget you but rather seeks after you, as a shepherd looking for his lost sheep. Or, in this case, He searches after you as a faithful husband seeking to redeem and restore his wayward wife. “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself” (2Tm 2:13). Through the marriage of Hosea and Gomer, which God used as a metaphor for His relationship between Israel and Himself, you will see the faithfulness of God demonstrated, and you will be called to faithfulness in return.

Hosea … Written on my Heart

Perhaps you do not bow down to a hand-carved idol as the Israelites were doing, but you may find yourself serving and worshiping at the feet of self or the world from time to time. God’s faithful love does not falter even in the midst of your deplorable trysts away from Him. He still loves you and often brings discipline to your life through sin’s consequences. Hosea reminds his readers that redemption is never too far away to receive. Some may feel their sins are too great or too many, but God’s grace is there to restore even the worst of sinners. Hosea points all to Christ’s love. While Hosea went to great lengths to restore his marriage with Gomer, the Lord went even further for you. He did not even spare His own Son, Jesus, but gave Him so that you and I might come into a right relationship with God Himself.