Year 6, Day 207: Hosea 6-7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Hosea 6-7 present us with a great opportunity to study the forgiveness of God.  After all, look at how God mourns His people in these verses.  What are the words that He uses to describe the people?  “Your love is like a morning cloud, a dew that goes away early.”  “They transgressed the covenant.”  Again we hear the return of the accusation, “They have dealt faithlessly with me.”  They are like robbers who “lie in wait.”  They are “silly and without sense.”

Okay, with that string of quotes, you are probably wondering how it is that I see this chapter as a chapter of forgiveness.  It certainly sounds like a chapter of condemnation, doesn’t it?  Of course it does!  But look at the subtext.  What is God longing for?  God is longing for the day that He can restore them.  If God wanted to destroy them, He could have easily struck them down and erased them from the face of the earth.  He’d already shown capacity to do it in the flood.  Why couldn’t He do it on a limited spectrum with His people here?  The reason is simple.  God’s wrath is designed to bring us to a place where God can instead reveal His forgiving love and redemption.

One of my all-time favorite quotes in the Bible is Hosea 6:6.  I like it because the reference is easy to remember.  But I like it even more because of the message that it contains.  “For I desire love and not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt sacrifices.”  In other words, God longs for and desires true relationship!  God isn’t waiting for a time to punish these people as thoroughly as they deserve.  He is waiting for a time when they repent in truth and He can open up the floodgates of His love.

God wants to forgive them.  That’s why He tells them the secret about love and knowledge being more important to Him than sacrifice and burnt offerings.  God wants us to dwell in relationship with Him that is sustained by His forgiveness.  He wants us to focus more on obeying Him because of His love rather than our fear.

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