email : Webview : Duane Brooks - Every Day with Jesus

July 20, 2018

Hosea 3:1-3

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.” So I bought her for fifteen shekelsof silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. 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.”

New International Version (NIV)

                 I admit it: I love a good love story. Have you heard the story of Hosea and Gomer? Hosea was a preacher and Gomer was an unlikely preacher’s wife. Her promiscuity led Hosea to wonder whether her kids were actually his kids. We hear it in their names. Finally she left him for a life of sin and degradation.

                Meanwhile Hosea took care of the kids, and still loved his wife. My pastor Larry Nixon used his consecrated imagination to imagine this moment in the story. Gomer returns to town as a slave, sold into slavery by one of her lovers. Broken and battered, she listens to the auctioneer as she crosses the block. Who would buy her?

                A familiar voice begins to bid. Hosea has taken his last money and the last food in the house to pay for her. He welcomes her home and says, “You will not leave me again.”

               Hosea saw this drama play out in Israel as well. God took Israel as his wife, but the people preferred prostitution with idols. But God’s love would not let them go. He purchased them back at a high price so that they would be his beautiful bride again.

               So God loves us with a redeeming love that will not let us go. We have been bought at a high price, not with perishable silver and gold but with the precious blood of God’s Son. Today if you hear his voice, do not run from him, but to him. He loves you. He always will.

Pray with me:

Father, thank you for redeeming our lives from the pit and crowning us with love and honor. We know we do not deserve your love, but we thank you for it. Help us to live in vital relationship with Christ our Redeemer today, we pray, in his holy name. Amen.

This year we focus our Every Day with Jesus readings on Jesus’ story. With references to Tallowood's Read Through the Bible in 2018 daily reading plan, let's focus our undivided attention on Jesus and follow where he lead. He will not fail. Neither will we!
Joyfully,
Duane

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