Hosea 12:8 in the NRSV says “Ephraim has said, “Ah, I am rich, I have
gained wealth for myself; in all of my gain no offense has been found
in me that would be sin.”
Ephraim knows that he has made himself rich by less than honest means,
but none of the means were flat out sin. He is looking at the letter of
the law, and obeying it with a loophole lifestyle.
We are guilty of that in many ways today. Christians are stealing
software and justifying it with loopholes like “They just charge way to
much.” or “I’m not making any money with it.” Unmarried couples are
doing what they aught not but saying it’s ok because it’s not sex. We
have anger, hate, and revenge, but we allow it because we think someone
deserves it.
If we live a “I know it’s not exactly right but it’s not sin”
mentality, then I think we’ll just make a bunch of “I know God is real,
but I don’t exactly have to follow Him” disciples.
Let’s follow Him. Let’s cast off the sin that so easily entangles. God
is so worth our pure devotion that comes to Him with a clear
conscience. It’s the joy of knowing you don’t have anything hidden in
your house that would cause shame if someone found it. Take it a step
further and show God everything hidden in your heart, so that when That
Day comes when everything is shown for what it really is, you will be
able to stand.
Hosea 14:4
"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them."
All of the rebukes from Hosea to the people and this is how He reassures them in the end. Man o man have we been wayward. So wayward that we cannot even do right if we want to. I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. Of all the rules and guidelines we put on people, only by living in Him can they live a victorious life. Sure, you might not smoke, but you still struggle with great anxiety. Sure, you might not cheat on your wife any more, but you still harbor discontent and bitterness. Sure, you might not lie to get money any more, but you still withhold it from the poor.
To all of our efforts of waywardness, to every sinful idol we worshipped in hopes to have a spiritual experience or to be ‘uplifted,’ to every single person who has walked out of a great worship service at church and kicked their dog or yelled at their kids in anger, God says "I will heal their waywardness and *love* them freely."
Here is how my Hebrew dictionary defines the word *love* marked with the asterisks.
“To love, desire, delight, like , be fond of, covet, be beloved, amiable, be a passionate lover. Implies an ardent and vehement inclination of the mind and a tenderness of affection at the same time. … The term denotes a strong emotional attachment for and a desire to possess or be in the presence of the object of love.”
It was used of Abraham of God when he was called the ‘friend of God.’
God says he will Ahab them freely. Hosea will love Gomer again, and this time he will love her so much that she’ll be completely and forever won over. We have all chased after other ‘gods’ for love. We have prostituted ourselves for the sake of approval, for the sake of riches, for the sake of comfort or pleasure, and God says "I’m going to heal you and love on you so much you won’t be able to handle any more."
see, that word ‘freely,’ as in God will love us freely…is the same freely you see in Exodus 36:3- And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning. So all the skilled craftsmen who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left their work and said to Moses, "The people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord commanded to be done." …And so the people were restrained from bringing more, because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work."
God said in Hosea 14 that He would love us freely.
Here’s the DEV (Dan’s expanded version)
I will heal your waywardness and love you with such an affectionate presence that I’ll always want to be around you and there will be enough of me for you so that you don’t need anything else.
How in the world could God be with us that much, unless He came to earth and lived among us. John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Only by coming in the flesh could He be with us. But then what about our sin? Nothing unclean can be in the presence of God!
Romans 3:23-24
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
So Jesus came to be with us, and to make a way for us to be with Him. And now He is always with us, because of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:23 “Jesus replied, ‘If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him… All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
So we have God loving us, wanting to spend time with us and be around us, even though we’re a bunch of wayward wives. His mercy and His promise are unfailing, and all of us won over by Him need only to believe it and be loved. Isn’t that unbelievable?!
Love & Joy
1:9-10 "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ."
1:25-27 "Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me."
This is the order:
Call. Obedience. Revelation
God reveals Himself in response to your obedience.
v. 4 They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements;
therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.
‘make many promises’ is two words together, meaning ‘they speak a lot
of declarations’ or ‘they say a lot of things’
agreements: barrett, oath, vow,
this makes me think of all the things that go on today. People seeing
that they are going to file for bankruptcy so they max out their credit
cards. People getting married in haste and then fighting to get out of
it.
No wonder lawsuits like weeds are popping up all over. The field is
plowed, it isn’t a barren field. People are getting married every week
and having very strong and happy marriages, but there are so many false
oaths and junk going on that people have a cynical view of marriage.
When they see young people in love they expect it to expire. When a
husband is a good husband and really *serves* his wife as the bible
says, he is considered a weakling and a wimp. When a wife is submissive
to her husband, she is considered un-enlightened, from some time long
past.
I’m getting hit lately with a message from the latest veggietales
movie-the Sumo of the Opera. I’ve got a list of things a mile long that
I said I’d do and haven’t finished. I don’t know how long it’s going to
take me to work through all of them, but man I hate it that I’ve said
many statements, ‘made many promises’ and here I am not keeping them.
Now in the midst of my plowed field of fruitful and good stuff that
I’ve done, I have all these weeds of things that I said I’d do and
haven’t. I’ve got an injured reputation with those that have only
gotten weeds from the wheat I promised them. Isn’t it the same with all
of us toward God? We say we’ll do all kinds of stuff for Him; usually
we sing it in a song. We make all kinds of commitments, and then don’t
do it.
Maybe I need to look at what I do, and see that coming up with the
idea and the desire to do something, doesn’t even count for 1% of doing
it.
A casting crowns song says “if we are the body, why aren’t His arms
reaching?” Maybe we have gotten to the point of thinking that singing
the worship songs is enough, and that we don’t have to follow through
on commitments that are ‘just part of a song.’ May God have mercy on me
for doing what I have promised, and may He have mercy on all of us for
singing false oaths and making agreements and not doing what we sung we
would do.
