Hosea Review

Today, I will review what I believe the book of Hosea is telling us today.  The first thing is that following the will of God is not easy.  Hosea was a prophet of God, but he was instructed to take a wife who was not the person Hosea would have likely chosen on his own.  We like Hosea must put God's will first even if we do not fully understand why He is asking us to do a particular thing.  When we do know what God is directing us to do, we like Hosea must do it without question.  Hosea was also telling the people of Israel something they did not want to hear.  They thought they had everything planned out, and they did not need God's protection.  They were going to rely on the powers of the world to protect them and worship the gods that everyone else worshipped.  We as followers of Christ today must never feel that we are so successful that we really don't need to look to God for direction daily.  If we become indifferent to God at any time, we are likely to find ourselves worshipping some other god.  False gods do not have to be statues but can be anything that comes between God and us, such as self-pride or material success.  Hosea reminded Israel that they were not God's people by physical birth or earthly merit, but that they were His people because He chose to enter into a covenant relationship with them.  God could have chosen the most powerful nation to reveal Himself to the world through, but He chose Israel, a basically insignificant group of people.  God does not call us today because we are strong, but He calls us because without Him, no matter how strong we may feel that we are, we are weak and insignificant without Him. We enter into a covenant relationship with God through accepting Christ, and only then can we call ourselves God's people.  We may wonder how Israel, those who called themselves God's people, could have fallen so far out of His will, but it occurred a little at a time, not all at once. Whenever we let anything come between God and us, no matter how small that thing might be, unless we repent and turn again to God, we will be subject to falling more under the power of sin.  For the people of Israel, that meant that they were God's people in name only but were spiritually no more His than the rest of the world.  When we come to God through faith in Christ, we will always be His, but we can become ineffective servants when we allow the things of the world to come between God and us.