“I’ve been set free. My God, my Savior, has ransomed me.” Chris Tomlin
“So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a half of barley.” Hosea 3:2
The story of Hosea and Gomer is bittersweet and hard to swallow… at first. It ends with wonderful promises and great rejoicing but not until this couple has scraped the very bottom of the very bottom. If you’ve never read Hosea (a smallish book near the end of the Old Testament, stuck in the middle of a bunch of other prophet names), do so, but go in with your heart open to what the Lord would whisper to you about your relationship with Him.
The Book of Hosea is about a man whom God uses as an object lesson to demonstrate His own unconditional love for His unfaithful and adulterous people. Hosea is told to take as a wife a faithless woman and then to take her back again and again, even when she freely and publicly shares herself and all the things Hosea has gifted to her with her lovers. When he can take it no longer, he turns her loose… and she falls so low that her only alternative is to sell herself into slavery.
God goes once more to Hosea: “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by her husband, yet an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” (3:1)
In a crazy act of unconditional love, Hosea hunts down his wife and finds her stripped and shorn, proud head no longer held high, arms tied to the auctioneer’s block, and he ransoms her, paying full price for his own wife.
Just like Jesus did for me.
And because He paid full price for me, His faithless bride, purchasing me from the slave-block to which I was chained, I am free.
My chains are gone. I am free. I am free.
Amazing grace.
How sweet the sound of His voice as He whispers to me, “My beloved, my beauty, my bride.”
Have you heard His voice whispering to you today?
Oh yes, my friend I have. I heard “we shall behold Him…face to face”…Sandi Patti’s signature song.
Love this account of Hosea and his bride… makes me want to go and read the book again with fresh eyes. Thanks for sharing, dear friend. Love you.
Glenda – don’t you love it when a song moves those places inside you in a way that only the Holy Spirit can? On Sunday, we had a guest musician whose sister signed for her during this song. The signing for ‘my chains are gone, I’ve been set free’ brought me to tears: she went from wrists crossed as though in handcuffs, head down, to arms thrown wide, head up. So clear to my little heart.
I do love it when the Holy Spirit gives us those songs and visuals that penetrate our hearts and souls…Someone said once…the Holy Spirit is our best friend….it’s true. He reads our hearts and is such a good comforter,counselor, convincer of truth. Without Him indwelling us, we would be lost. Praise God those chains are gone and we have been set free!
Such a beautiful story, isn’t it? Rough…but beautiful. His love for us is so much more than we can understand.
Lindsay – It’s hard to imagine what Hosea must have gone through…but can you imagine what Gomer must have thought about the whole thing, especially at the beginning when she lives in such debauchery and here comes this hairy preacher-man up to her after somehow convincing her father to let him marry his daughter. I don’t know – maybe she was so out of control that the dad was happy to get rid of her. Maybe he thought holy-roller Hosea could tame her or break her. Who knows?
Thanks for coming by – I think the Lord might have opened something up for that you-know-what in September…. I guess I just had to put it out there and actually ask. We’ll see – keep praying.
Totally praying!!