Author: Christine Wyrtzen

She said, `I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. Hosea 2: 5,6 

Hosea married a prostitute. She bore him two children, grew discontent, and then went off to find other lovers. God reveals that her story will be my story ~ when I grow bored, turn away,  and pursue other love interests.  My discontent tricks me into believing that a detour, a distraction, is what I really need.  I can name all the ways I think I’ll benefit but ‘shalom’ never materializes to the point of soul-filling. Disillusionment greets me at the end. 

God actually planned it that way!  He’s not cruel.  He’s jealous.  But with only fallen humanity as a backdrop to understand the meaning of jealousy, I can be tripped up thinking of God as the One who is jealous.  But doesn’t it have to be a holy thing when He feels it?   He is holy.  He designed me in a way where He can be the only One who fills that aching void in my soul. He is the sole primary source for connection and romance. 

God’s greatest desire is that I will pursue Him, commune with Him, and discover the pleasure for which I was created.  With that in mind, what more loving thing could He do than thwart my spiritual affairs? Because He gave me free choice, He won’t stop me from wandering, but He will make sure that I come up empty when I turn to fickle sources.  He hopes that my empty heart will drive me back to perfect Love. 

Where are you looking for soul satisfaction today?  When you repeatedly extend your heart to find love and connection and come up empty, it’s a sure sign that what you seek will not be found there. Your heart was made to rest near to the heart of God. 

I’ve taken some long, hard journeys away from You.  But I’m so glad I came home. Amen 

They have gone deep into depravity. They do not direct their deeds toward turning to their God. Hosea 2:2,4 

The real tragedy is not that people sin, it’s what happens after they do.  Sin should prick our consciences and cause us to fall into repentance. Conviction should direct us toward God, not away from Him. 

One of the foundational pillars of our Christian doctrine is that we are sinners and Christ died to pay for our sins. After we come to Christ, we often forget that we are still sinners, saved by grace.  Instead, we succumb to the pressure to appear perfect.  Sins of the heart abound but they stay hidden in communities where everyone wears a mask.  There is verbal assent that Christ came to save sinners few want to admit that they are one anymore. 

There are at least two roadsigns on the way to pretension. 

. . when I excuse my behavior and deny the act. I whitewash it by making horizontal comparisons with other people. When I see my neighbor as much worse off than myself, I am already in trouble.

. . when I minimize my shortcomings so that others will think more highly of me.  I’ll accuse the person I wronged of over-exaggerating my sin.  It is my injured pride that causes me to re-shape my sin into a more manageable package. 

Any thought that is not something Jesus would have thought, or any act that Jesus would not have engaged in, is sin. Even the smallest of offenses would have been enough to condemn me to an eternity separated from God.  There is no such thing as an insignificant sin.

I want to live cross-centered, pursuing the mind of Christ, so that I won’t be self-impressed nor self-protective. 

Show me who I am, with and without Your grace.  In Jesus’ name, Amen 

Say unto your brothers, “Ammi,” and to your sisters, “Ruhamah.” Hosea 2:1 

Hosea is a beautiful story of God’s mercy. It showcases the long arm of God and the extent to which He will go to reach His children when they are far from Him. Throughout this prophetic book, God delivers some difficult words to the people He loves, and, unfortunately, they are well deserved. Their betrayal has been profound, and their disobedience heartbreaking.  His messages will be proclaimed with sobering clarity but the people aren’t in a place yet to take them to heart. They are enjoying their sin too much. 

In spite of this, God’s unchanging love for them is evident in the way He addresses them. “Ammi” means ‘my people’ and ‘Ruhamah’ means ‘those who have obtained mercy’. 

To make a fair comparison, let’s imagine a wife sitting down to have a difficult conversation with an unfaithful husband. She begins by addressing him as ‘my dear husband – who has already obtained mercy.’ Even if what follows is tough love, there is surely a foundation for the future. 

This reminds of me a scene between Peter and Jesus in the upper room, the night Jesus would be arrested. Peter tells Jesus, in a sincere flash of passion, that he is ready to die for Him. Jesus replies, “Not only aren’t you ready to give your life for Me, but before morning comes, you will deny that you know Me three times.” At this, Peter’s heart is full of anguish. It’s what Jesus says next that is so far from the confines of human limits. “Don’t be worried and upset.  Believe in God.  Believe also in me.” There is mercy before the sin; mercy that bridges the present and the future. 

You and I have a Savior who tells us that though we will fail Him today, we should not be consumed with hopelessness. This is not to say that we shouldn’t take our sin seriously, but only that He stands ready to forgive and extend mercy when we repent. Peter’s restoration with Jesus after the resurrection provides a picture of one who obtained unfathomable mercy. They ate a meal together, exchanged heartfelt words about ‘feeding the sheep’, and Peter went on to become the founding father of the New Testament church. The unspoken posture of his writings is, consistently, ‘one who has obtained mercy.’ 

For every way I have failed You, there is redemption. I fall on my knees in gratitude. Amen 

Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea. It will come to pass, in that place where it is said to them, “You are not My people,” it will be said, “You are the sons of the living God.” Hosea 1:10 

The nation of Israel was under God’s displeasure. They were walking in disobedience and God got creative in the methods He used for getting a message to His people.  He told Hosea to marry a prostitute. Then, God named each of Hosea’s three children with names that bore a targeted message. 1.) I will crush your fighting strength because you have forsaken Me. 2.) You will experience me as a God who has run out of mercy, so long as you fail to repent. 3.) Your rejection of Me will cause others to say that I am not your God.

 Each one was a tragic word which should have grieved the hearts of each Israelite but they continued to walk in perverted paths.  In spite of this, God followed up these messages with an additional one that began with the word “yet”. In that turn of a phrase, the message of salvation and redemption flowed from the mouth of a heartbroken Father. 

This three-letter word, ‘yet’, can still be heard as God expresses Himself in the New Covenant. 

You may not love Me, yet My love for you is unchanged. 

You may not search for Me, yet I pursue you and keep calling you by name. 

You may be chasing after other gods, yet I will keep sending my messengers to you, reminding you to come to me. 

You may believe that your sin has disqualified you from a real future, yet I have one waiting for you to claim after tears of repentance.

“Yet” is indicative of a value system that is other-worldly. We don’t experience it much here on Earth.  God wants us to know that we are citizens of His kingdom. What we really deserve is withheld when we repent of our sins. What we have not earned is freely given by a God who delights in being extravagant. 

I have failed so many times to love You, yet You loved me anyway. Your message still lives to the Israelites still lives.  For me, for my family, and for the land of Israel who does not yet acknowledge Your Son.  There is no greater love.  In Jesus name, Amen

Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colors. Genesis 37:2-3

Favoritism can be complicated. Jacob didn’t make Joseph his favorite to spite other righteous sons. Many of the others had already proven themselves to be troublemakers, bound up in foolishness. They had spurned their father’s ways, leaving a trail of disappointment and hurt.

I’m not defending the fact that Jacob showed favoritism. He acted unwisely and set things up for the other sons to hate their brother. From any sibling’s perspective, favoritism never ends well.

But from a parent’s perspective?  Well, the heart is a complicated thing. It can be difficult to have the same affection for each of your children. If one is bent toward evil, disrespects authority, and has no regard for family, isn’t it difficult to feel as attached to that one as much as another whose heart clearly belongs to God? It can be hard to disguise the pleasure you feel over the one that is righteous. It’s equally hard to hide the pain the other one inflicts when they act out against members of your family.  

This is where each mother and father needs Jesus desperately. Only He can heal the hurts caused by a wayward child. Only He can give the spiritual fuel necessary to love the renegade wisely. Only He can show parents how to bestow unconditional love to two kinds of children. How will the child who loves rebellion not see the delight in his parent’s eyes over the ‘good’ sibling? God is the only one who can write the relational roadmap for these dynamics.

In the long run, Jacob should have learned from his own troubled childhood. Favoritism hadn’t worked out well between he and Esau either. Unfortunately, he will repeat it again by failing to disguise his deep affection for Joseph. He will give him a coat, the kind of coat only a royal child would wear. This will fuel the other’s hatred for their brother. In spite of Jacob’s mistakes, God’s purpose for Joseph and the future of Israel will not be thwarted. That is comforting, isn’t it?  In the days ahead, we’ll be in awe of a God who does all things well ~ even when it appears our sin has destroyed all hope of a future.

You are the God of grace and redemption. Bind our families together in righteousness so that we still stand in the last day. In Jesus’ name, Amen