How does God love us? (from the life of Hosea) First of all…
#1. HE Barricades us with Briars.
God barricades people who matter to him with briars. If we don’t respond to God, then he puts up this giant wall of briars to stop us – to hedge us in. When we run from God and fail to respond to him, he puts us in the barricade of briars.
As we go back to Hosea, and we think again about Gomer running, look at Hosea 2:6-8: “Therefore, behold, I will hedge up her way with thorns. I will build a wall against her so that she cannot find her paths.” I’ll say it once again: God loves us enough to make it tough when we run from him. Verse 7, “She will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them. She will seek them, but will not find them.”
God says “OK Gomer, you want to run, I’m going to make it tough to run and do your own thing. Gomer’s out there prostituting herself, sleeping with other men for money. She has spit in the face of her husband and God. And in spite of that God pursues her. He makes it hard for her to keep running. What’s he do? I don’t know exactly what it looked like, but God made it hard for her to find men who would pay her for sex.
Maybe new laws were passed, maybe there was a drought and money was short for everybody. Whatever the case, money was running out because God had barricade her in with Briars. Just like he did with Jonah, Just like he did with the prodicgal son, just like he does with all of His children who want to go their own way, he make it hard for them to run. So, the money has dried up what now?
Then, the plot thickens. God tells Hosea to do something strange. God says, “Hosea, I want you to find Gomer and I want you to give her lover a money and groceries. I know she is kind of destitute right now, and I want you to do that. It will show her that you love her unconditionally and irrationally.” So Hosea, being a prophet of God, said, “I’ll do it.”
Hosea tracks Gomer down. He gives all this stuff to her lover. I can just see him standing at a distance watching this take place. Her lover, in turn, gives Gomer all this stuff. Now Gomer thinks her lover is giving it to her. Her lover is thinking, “This Hosea guy, what an ignoramus. You think I am going to tell Gomer that he gave it to me? No, no!”
What’s the correlation? We are blessed. We receive things. We get promotions. Things happen for us. Too often, we give credit to everybody and everything else except God. God, like Hosea, stands at a distance. We credit luck, we credit networking, we credit our education, or we credit our athletic ability. Yet, God is shaking his head like Hosea did and saying, “Can’t you see, I’m the source of your blessing. I’m the one who made it happen for you.’
Often, in our running, God irrationally blesses us, He irrationally showers His love down us – and we ignore the source. I’ve seen this happen so often with people. They are hurting, they need help, they need prayer – then boom, God blesses them. God takes care of them, God blesses the business, God makes it so the deal goes through. Our needs have been met, but we forget the source of the blessing. That’s what Gomer does.
Look at Verse 8, “For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and lavished on her silver and gold.” When something great happens to you, who do you give credit to?
Hosea pursued Gomer. Gomer didn’t turn. She kept going. She kept running. When God pursues people who run from him, what does he do? Does God give up? Does God say, “Well, boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Just go on ahead.” No. God does not say that. God does not do that. Here is what God does—maybe you are running from him right now—first, God barricades us with Briars.
What's the bottm line? Stop running FROM God and turn to Him. He loves you.
Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!
No comments:
Post a Comment