She Reads Truth: HoseaSample

Hosea 13

Are you tired yet?

Are you sick of the people of Israel being such knuckleheads? Because seriously, by chapter thirteen, it’s not funny anymore. And the Lord is angry. Justly, righteously, holy angry. They are His people. The Chosen Ones. Brought out of slavery in Egypt - the ones He provided for in crazy miraculous ways. The ones He has been calling to Himself for whole chapters - books! - of the Bible, year after year after year after year.

And still, thirteen chapters into the book of Hosea, no clanging cymbal or shockingly graphic simile is enough to shake them out of their sin and cause them to repent. And oh how He wants them to repent - to live in loving, covenant relationship with Him.

God gave them food and water in the wilderness, but just as soon as they were satisfied, they forgot why they needed Him in the first place.

God is angry with Israel. Shoot, by this point, I am angry with Israel.

Yet again, around the back door, we are seeing that Ephraim isn’t the only chaff swirling around on the threshing floor.

That’s me too, isn’t it, God?

And our frustration with the Chosen People for being so maddeningly unfaithful to their Helper turns inward. Their “He’ll be here when we need him” attitude that puts God in a box on a shelf in case of emergency starts to sound disquietingly familiar.

And again, two weeks into our study of Hosea, we might even find we still aren’t giving God the place He belongs in our lives - not on a shelf in a box, but on our door frames and at our tables and on our tongues. In relationship.

We might also realize that, like Ephriam, we sometimes talk about God’s grace like a ‘get out of jail free’ card, and His anger like a ‘sit quiet in the pews’ scare tactic from our grandparents that doesn’t really scare us anymore.

Sisters, do you know that, as Tim Keller says, “We are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope - at the very same time”? Let’s go before our holy God today to thank Him for not giving up on us and for His all-sufficient grace even in our darkest times.

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