True Repentance
Opening Prayer
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9,10).
Read Hosea 3:1–5
The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”
4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Do you want God? Or do other gods have your heart?Hosea’s story is so human and heart-rending. But things get worse. Gomer has now left Hosea for another man (1–3).
Hosea had to go and find her living with another man—the pain must have been terrible. “So I bought her” he says—he had to buy her. The price he paid added up to around what Exodus 21:32 says a slave cost. That’s Hosea’s wife—what a horrible mess unfaithfulness causes. But God tells Hosea: “Go again, love her.” How could he? For Hosea to love Gomer after all she had done over the years, all the hurt and lies, the children in his home who were only his in name—it would be heroic for Hosea to go and love Gomer again. But that’s exactly the point: because Hosea’s love for Gomer was to show the world God’s love in miniature.
What Hosea wants from Gomer is the same as what God wants from his people. Hosea doesn’t buy back Gomer so he can have a slave or a servant for himself—he wants his wife back. He wants the restoration of a loving, passionate, committed marriage. And that’s what God wants from his people—not just obedience to laws and rules, not servants or slaves just to do his will,
but true genuine reconciliation. God wants true repentance, and true repentance is about an intimate relationship of love being restored (5).
Apply
Do you know someone who is in desperate need of being redeemed by our Jesus? How can you show them God’s love today?
Closing prayer
I praise You, my God, for loving me! How wonderful are Your ways and Your thoughts toward me. Thank You for redemption.
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