Hosea
11:1 “When Israel
was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt .”
Pastor
Kyle told us in one of his recent Sunday Sermons that God had a lot to say about the coming of the promised
Messiah (Jesus) in the Old Testament, while at the same time calling the exiles
back into being His people; the people that God wants them to be. He is still
making that call today.
Hosea 14:4 “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them
freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.”
We
have to be very careful when we doing something because “God told me to do
this.” Almost all of the time, the proof of God’s direct in our life is seen in
the rear view mirror. We going through life with all sorts of things (good and
bad) happening and only see in retrospect that those pieces of the puzzle along
the broken road were orchestrated by God and fit together perfectly lead us to
where we are. So, we cannot jump to spontaneous decisions and attribute them to
God, when they are really our desires being justified. In our sin nature, like
the nation Israel
in Hosea’s time, a person or a nation can run away from God and prostitute
themselves to other gods. The good news is that no matter how much we run away,
like Hosea after his wife, God keeps pursuing us. Even so, there are
consequences for our faithfulness of thoughts, words and actions.
Isaiah 1:18 “Come now,
and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as
white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Dr.
Gary V. Smith states that Hosea was a living illustration of God’s love and commitment
to us. The way that we picture God and Jesus will affect our life. There is the
“God Concept”, which are our Creeds, our worship, our praise songs, our Theology,
our Doctrine, et cetera. But there is also the “God Image”, which is how we
picture, feel about and interact with God. Our choices. Egypt (in the
opening verse) represents sin and sin distorts our image of God and ushers us
into the bondage of spiritual exile. The answer: insert a bigger image … the
true God, who is calling the saints (meaning those who are sanctified) out of
spiritual slavery through Jesus the redeeming Savior. Like in our earthly
relationships, we do not really fall out of love, but stop pursuing God for
another. Sin is nothing more than spiritual prostitution, selling ourselves to
the devil. Loving anything more than God is spiritual adultery. True love is to
pursue God.
Psalm 103:11-12 “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great
is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he
removed our transgressions from us.”
Exile
means removing ourselves from the presence of God. There are four types of
exile: (1) Self imposed exile – isolation from pride to guilt, (2) Addiction exile
– substituting, trying to fill our needs outside of God, (3) Good old-fashioned
sin – off doing our own things (what we want, when we want), and (4)
Life-imposed exile – family needs, job issues, health problems, marriage struggles,
et cetera. All these exiles lack a pursuit of Almighty God in common and lead
to isolation and hiding.
Ephesians 1:6-7 “To the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,
according to the riches of his grace.”
There
is no set limit, no line crossed or final straw, because God extends His
infinite hand of grace to all sinners. Jesus extends
infinite forgiveness and grace. There are always those in desperate need
of forgiveness by those in desperate need to give forgiveness. There is one
human race and we are called to forgive as we have been forgiven and help as we
have been helped. We are all called out of exile; not to tolerate exile. That
may require taking a step back, but we must not give up because we need to show
up and keep pursuing.
In
Christ, Brian
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