Wednesday, July 27, 2022

 

Wednesday, July 27, 2022


Psalm 68:1-20


Hosea 2:14 – 3:5


Romans 5:1 – 11



On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.”


Before we jump into trying to figure out what God wants us to do with these readings before us, let's try and figure what God wants us to understand first. These two passages are all about Him first.


Carrying on from yesterday's reflection, let's start with empathising with this husband in the book of Hosea. His wife is cheating on him. The one person in all the world that he loved the most, the mother of his children, is running around with other men. He should be pretty upset! But look at what he does in today's reading: he goes back to her to try and woo her back. Somehow, she's gotten herself into a slave auction, so he has to pay the cost of a slave, then he gives her gifts on top of her freedom. God is then very direct in telling us that this is what it is like for Him when we “cheat” on God.


Paul uses this idea, that God is the one chasing after us (even though we don't deserve it) to argue against his opposition. There are people saying that Paul is teaching us not to worry about following God's moral code. What these people don't understand, and what Paul is trying to explain, is that our focus need's to be on God's point of view. We're very good at thinking about ourselves, but look: Christ died for us, even when we were sinners. What must have been going through God's mind to do this? It would have been easy to die for us if we were good people. But God decided that while we were at our very worst - ashamed, disgraced, standing in a slave auction, probably lots of mud on our face and under our nails – this was the person He wanted to be married to.


It is very easy to understand this intellectually. It is almost impossible to accept it as reality: “it” being the depth of God's love for us. This is why God pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit: this love is as big as God, and it needs to God's power for us to receive it.


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