Adultery….

 Adultery…

Back when I was taking seminary classes, one course was on problems you would face in ministry…there was a whole list of them…I wrote about pornography in a blog awhile back…adultery was another…

And it came into my office several times…women whose husbands had wandered, walked away…some marriages made a come back while others were shattered…shattering wives, husbands, children…distrust, unhappiness unforgiveness, a myriad of other emotions and hurts…effecting generations…the tears, the anger…just the memories of those times makes me cry…I rejoiced with the reconciliations, but there was always an underlying feeling of “will this last?”…

The book of Hosea has that same feeling…Hosea, whose name means “salvation “ is called by God to speak and not only to speak but to live out the words that God gives him…a picture of God whose loves his people even when they turn their back on Him….an eternal story that is as good today as it was hundreds of years ago…God’s love, redemption from sin…consequences, but love…

 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel: When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”

Hos.1.1-2

I love that the scriptures do not white wash real life…even the hard places…real life, real people, real problems, with a real solution…

Thank YOU…

“Do you know the saving power of God, now offered to us through His Son, Jesus? If so, as a redeemed child of God, have you offered “redemption” or forgiveness to those in your life who were once under your judgment? Not only does the book of Hosea provide an example of God’s love to a people who have left God behind, but it also shows us what forgiveness and restoration look like in a close relationship. The book of Hosea illustrates that no one is beyond the offer of our forgiveness because no one sits outside God’s offer of forgiveness. Certainly, God brings judgment on those who turn from Him, but Hosea’s powerful act of restoration within his own marriage set the bar high for those of us seeking godliness in our lives.”

https://www.insight.org/resources/bible/the-minor-prophets/hosea

Heart that forgives…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUV5T9JIJZ0