Hosea Chronicles: Part 4
The Lord purchased us.
In 2013, we learn this, most likely, in the New Testament first. We are taught verses such as the following.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
This must be, without a doubt, one of the most gut-wrenching elements that God endures: watching his children continually turn to worldly pleasures in this life, when all along, he paid for them.
We know that Jesus would pay the ultimate price for humanity, in dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins as the perfect sacrifice.
We also see the scope of Hosea’s love for Gomer, in that he paid to get her back. Not only did he pay for her, but it says that he had to pay in currency as well as possessions to make up the price.
“And the LORD said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.”
Hosea 3:1-3
The picture is clear: God loves you so much that He will BUY YOU BACK! You might even say that this is not a huge task. After all, He owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). But God did not merely pay a debt; He paid OUR debt with HIS Son. I’m sad to say that I don’t think I would ever pay this price for someone; especially someone who would turn their back on me repeatedly.
This is the love of God; unfathomable and precious. But it doesn’t stop there.
As a Christ-follower, I am called into a life of this sort of self-sacrificing love. This love has been given to me, and I am stewarded with reflecting this same love to others; even, and especially, my enemies. This is why the narrow path is really that narrow. Paul speaks to this to the Romans and the Corinthians. He shows us that Jesus exemplifies the kind of love that dies for its enemies (Romans 5:7). He speaks to the fact that, because we have received this love, we are to be ministers of it (1 Corinthians 5:11-21)!
Jesus sums it up perfectly in the following verse:
“Freely you’ve received; now freely give.” - Matthew 10:8b
Check out Part 4 of “The Hosea Love Story” by Irving Bible.