Day 64
Hosea 1 - 14
Spiritual adultery, foreign Gods, and idols unending seem to be the theme. Honestly, I sit here and think, "How dumb can they be" with all their foreign Gods and idols and refusal to just obey. God has said, "Just Don't Do It" for like a million pages now. Yet they still do. And then I think, "Am I that dumb" too with my idols, the things or people in my life that I place before God?
Is my God just one god in a gallery of gods in my life? Autism, Facebook, Autism, anything but God? I would never even consider adultery against my husband, but yet by having other idols in my life, that's what I'm doing to God. Egads.... The book of Hosea says spiritual polygamy is nothing but adultery. God loves us as we love our children. No matter what sins they commit, we still love them unconditionally. Yet there is a punishment that must occur as we wait with HOPEISM that our prodigal children will return to us. To obedience.
My God telling Hosea to marry Gomer, an unfaithful, adulterous wife, He is letting us know what it's like for him and his covenant with the unfaithful people of Israel who continually defy his decrees of obedience.
Hosea 4:1-3 says, Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed."
That sounds familiar in this day and age, sadly.
Hosea 4:12 goes on, "....They consult a wooden idol and are answered by a stick of wood. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God."
One thing I can say in my favor, is that I have come to the realization that man's medicine and physicians are no longer my idol. I have consulted them "as a wooden idol" and trust me, it was even less than "a stick of wood" that answered. That has been the most rewarding thing in the healing of my son. To not put those people above God. When most are even lower than a snake in their profit-seeking and their own refusal to think on their own.
I have to laugh at how many "wooden idol's" I have sought as greater than God. Self-help books, programs, methods, medicine, even the best intentioned and bestest of friends are not to be sought out first before seeking out God.
Hosea 6:1-3 says, "Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."
In Hosea 13 and 14 I can just see myself saying some of those things to my son when he was young. The old, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out...." lecture.
Hosea 13:4
"But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out o Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me. I cared for you in the sesert, in the land of burning heat. When I fed them, they were satisfied......"
I know God isn't a snarky God, but I can so totally see Him wanting to smirk just a bit when he asks in Hosea 13:9, this question: "You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper. Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, 'Give me a king and princes'?"
Where is your fix-all book that will fix all for you? Where is your doctor who will cure what only I can? I just have to laugh. Truly, where are all those idols we put above God, when we need them? I guess just like in adultery, we run to others or to things or to new churches or new doctors to fix what only God can. We follow the latest and greatest and not the tried and true.
But alas, HOPEISM always shines and God is in the business of restoration for those who return and repent.
Hosea 14 says:
"Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God."
"....return to the Lord."
"Forgive all our sins..."
"I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them."
I love this line and sit here reminding myself of it as it applies to my own idols that I put before God...
Hosea 14:3
"We will never again say 'Our gods' to what our own hands have made......"
I love how this book ends...
Hosea 14:9
"Who is wise? He will realize these things, Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them."
To walking with God and not stumbling with satan,
HOOYAH!
