Day 77: Not My people: but My people

Hosea 1:1-3:5

1 John 5:1-21

Psalm 124:1-8

Proverbs 29:5-8

In all my pictures so far in this blog, this picture probably most accurately depicts what this project looks like for me. I leave it until the last thing before I go to bed and I'm blinking trying not to fall asleep. I'm reading the amazing Word of God and seeing how deep it is but lacking the energy it takes to really think about it or write about it.

That's me tonight. So, yes, this passage of the Bible was packed. But I left it till 10:40pm to write about it and I'm too tired after a day at work to write about it all. And though I want to be doing my best on this blog, I know the most important part of this project is that I'm reading the Bible every day and listening to God's Word and even if I don't have the energy to write about it: that is what I'm doing. And so it is all good enough for me.

Hosea. Shoot. For all the times I've heard someone say "just wait, God will bring you the right man," "Wait for your 'Boaz'" and stuff like that...this right here shouts in the face of that: "that's not what's most important." I've always shrugged those comments off anyway because no, marriage is not promised to me. The message that God has the right man for every single godly girl out there is not necessarily the truth and in fact it's besides the point: our lives are meant to be lived for Jesus daily, not in waiting for "Boaz."

I think that's what this story says too. Maybe Hosea had been waiting for the right woman as he was a single godly man. But God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute all so that He can demonstrate how the Israelites have been chasing after lesser things, pleasures, idols, etc and running away from the steady, true, present love of God.

And maybe some might think I sound pessimistic, but isn't that what we are doing if we are living our lives waiting for a husband?

I'm sure my perspective on this will change throughout my life as I mature and have different relationships and experiences and maybe eventually get married...but I'd hope that one thing would stay the same about my perspective: that following and pursuing Jesus who pursues and leads me is THE most important thing.

But all of this is only in regards to Hosea himself...how it must have felt to give up the dream to marry a godly partner....but what about what this means for us now. Why does this happen? How does this point us to Jesus?

How does this point us to Christmas?

As demonstrated in Hosea, we are wanderers. We seek satisfaction away from the only One who satisfies. We don't deserve God. We are "not his people." We don't live up to His name, we don't deserve His love.

But God sent His Son to the world so that He could say He loves us, we are His, and He is ours.

"I will show my love to the one I called 'Not my loved one.' I will say to those called 'Not my people,' 'You are my people'; and they will say, 'You are my God.'" Hosea 3:23

In other words:

"You are not My people, but you are My people, because of Jesus Christ."