In Hosea 2 God is comparing the Israelites relationship with God to an unfaithful marriage. In this comparison the Israelites are the adulterous wife and God is the faithful husband. All in all, every blessing comes from the Lord, but the Israelites become dependent on thinking that the source of there blessings come from other false God’s. We must always pay attention to God’s character and what is pleasing to him. God desires for us to have a correct depiction of who he is. To put anyone or anything over himself blasphemy. God will never play second fiddle to anyone or anything in our lives. I can’t stress enough how huge it is to keep our priorities straight. It matters a whole lot to God and it affects our relationship with him deeply. The main point to never forget is the end of this chapter. The Lord says that he will never give up on winning back our love. What does this look like? It says if God loves us he is going to try to break us of our bad habits. This usually comes from heart break, suffering, and pain. It comes from breaking us down and picking us up. The military uses this because it is proven and it works. We as people are hard headed. It usually takes hitting rock bottom to realize who we are and who God is. Once again, this is what God desires. Spiritual wisdom comes from taking these situations and learning from them. What we learn from them is to never forget them. We mature when we don’t forget them because it always gives us the correct perspective when it comes to God. I think back to when I hit rock bottom daily because it constantly reminds me of where I ended up without God in my life. Without God I am nothing and I have nothing without God. Everything I have comes from him. The very air I breathe comes from him. When we start to believe that we should pound our chest and say “look at what I did,” “look at me,” or “look how important I am,” we are in the danger zone. We haven’t done anything. Everything good in our life comes from God. There is no other source. The good news is that God knows the flesh that we are trapped in. He walked on this earth just like me and you. He conquered the sin and pride that we fight on the cross and he is coming back one day to claim his bride as his own because he loves us. Love y’all! Have a great day!
Hosea 2:1-23
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“Call your brothers: My People and your sisters: Compassion. Rebuke your mother; rebuke her. For she is not my wife and I am not her husband. Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face and her adultery from between her breasts. Otherwise, I will strip her naked and expose her as she was on the day of her birth. I will make her like a desert and like a parched land, and I will let her die of thirst. I will have no compassion on her children because they are the children of promiscuity. Yes, their mother is promiscuous; she conceived them and acted shamefully. For she thought, “I will follow my lovers, the men who give me my food and water, my wool and flax, my oil and drink.” Therefore, this is what I will do: I will block her way with thorns; I will enclose her with a wall, so that she cannot find her paths. She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will think, “I will go back to my former husband, for then it was better for me than now.” She does not recognize that it is I who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil. I lavished silver and gold on her, which they used for Baal. Therefore, I will take back my grain in its time and my new wine in its season; I will take away my wool and linen, which were to cover her nakedness. Now I will expose her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my power. I will put an end to all her celebrations: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths — all her festivals. I will devastate her vines and fig trees. She thinks that these are her wages that her lovers have given her. I will turn them into a thicket, and the wild animals will eat them. And I will punish her for the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense. She put on her rings and her jewelry and followed her lovers, but she forgot me. This is the Lord’s declaration. Therefore, I am going to persuade her, lead her to the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her vineyards back to her and make the Valley of Achor , into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt. In that day — this is the Lord’s declaration — you will call me “my husband” and no longer call me “my Baal.” For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth; they will no longer be remembered by their names. On that day I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the sky, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will shatter bow, sword, and weapons of war in the land , and will enable the people to rest securely. I will take you to be my wife forever. I will take you to be my wife in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion. I will take you to be my wife in faithfulness, and you will know the Lord. On that day I will respond — this is the Lord’s declaration. I will respond to the sky, and it will respond to the earth. The earth will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. I will sow her in the land for myself, and I will have compassion on Lo-ruhamah; I will say to Lo-ammi: You are my people, and he will say, “You are my God.”
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