Monday, April 2, 2018

Our Newlywed Husband

Hosea 1-3

God wanted Hosea to demonstrate in his own life the grief the Lord feels when His people Israel forsake Him for other gods. 

Then after it all, God will restore them in that Day.

2:16

And it will come about in that Day, declares the Lord, that you will call me "my Husband" (Ishi) and will no longer call me "Master" (Baali, Boss). 

Vs. 19-20

And I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will [intimately] know the Lord.

God loves what He made. He is in love with who He made. He has done everything possible and impossible to let us know Who He is and how He loves us passionately as a newlywed husband is enamored with his new bride, and how much He loves us, how deep, how wide, how broad, how high, how all encompassing us it is. He is above us, below us, beside us left and right, before us, behind us, inside us, and all around us, all the time. 

And His heart hurts when we ignore Him, reject Him, and turn to other gods, idols. He compares it to Hosea loving Gomer so much, and yet she leaves him for other lovers. But he goes to buy her back to himself, and keeps her for himself (chapter 3). 

And in that Day when the Lord Jesus returns to this Earth to set up His Kingdom in this World, then "Every eye will see Him" (Revelation 1:7) and will know this Jesus of Nazareth is none other than the very Lord God of the Old Testament and the promised Messiah. And all Israel will be saved in that Day (Romans 11:26), to reign with Him along with His Resurrected Church as His bride. 

And we will love Him in the righteousness and justice and love and compassion and faithfulness He loves us with; and we will "know" Him as a bride "knows" her new Husband on their wedding night; and the honeymoon will never end! 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!