| HOW CAN I GIVE YOU UP? |
| Through the book of Hosea and the theme of marriage, God describes His heart for this generation and His longing for us to worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). In the book of Hosea, God calls him to marry a prostitute. Hosea wept and then obeyed by marrying Gomer the prostitute. God did this to demonstrate to Hosea God's love for Israel. |
| Before jumping into how terrible Gomer is, let us first try and understand how she got to be in that position in the first place. Do prostitutes ever really grow up saying to themselves, "When I grow up I want to sell my body on the streets and let other people abuse me so I can make a living"? Francine Rivers wrote a book called "Redeeming Love" that sheds light onto how Gomer may have gotten to be a prostitute in the first place. The "Gomer" in the story grew up having her father not wanting her because she was an illigitimate child from an affair. Other men were allowed to rape her when she was young because she shared some of the same beauty as her mother. Because her mother was a prostitute and since she knew of no other life, love, or committment, she became one too. The teenage prostitutes in Mozambique Africa, or the whores on the streets of San Fransisco probably didn't grow up having that as their dream career either. Most of them are just broken and trying to get freed but they just don't see their beauty in Christ, they don't understand who they are in Christ and thus they allow others to define them. To really understand how to better be loyal and faithful to our Lover and truly worship Him in spirit and truth, let's first see where Gomer and Israel went wrong. |
| WHERE DID GOMER AND ISRAEL SEEK SATISFACTION AND WORTH FROM? Hosea 2:5,7-8 Gomer ran to other lovers for love and committment that could be only found in her husband Hosea. Israel ran to other nations (Ezekiel 16:28-29) rather than to God. They sought the help of kings for their healing (Hosea 5:13), they didn't cry out to God when they were weeping on their beds (7:14). Where do we seek satisfaction and our worth from? Where do we run to first when we're depressed or in trouble? To ministry, to people, to alcohol, etc.? The first place that they went wrong in being faithful and worshipping in spirit and in truth is that they didn't realize that God was their Source and that He alone satisfies. |
| WHAT HAPPENED TO GOMER AND ISRAEL WHEN THEY SOUGHT SATISFACTION FROM OTHER LOVERS? Hosea 8:4;5:4 Gomer had to be set aside for awhile to receive healing. She cut herself off from the love of her husband when she was chasing other lovers. (Jeremiah 3:1-3, "therefore the showers have been withheld") Israel cut themselves off from the fullness of God's blessing by running to other nations before running to Him. When we run to other "lovers" we cut ourselves off from the fullness that God is longing to pour out but can't. When we spend time with unfruitful friends, it cuts us off from all the blessings God wants to pour out on us through other fruitful friendships. When we hang onto the silver so tightly, our hands are too tied up to receive the gold God has for us. God's heart breaks more, not because we're disobedient to Him but because He so longs to pour out His blessings upon us but sometimes just can't because we are not in a place to receive. The second place they went wrong was that they didn't realize that seeking temperal pleasures to satisfy them cut them off from the lasting fullness God wanted to bring. |
| WHAT THEN SHOULD OUR RESPONSE BE? Hosea 10:12-13;12:6;11:6-7 Gomer should be faithful and loyal to Hosea. She should seek her natural love from him and no other. Israel needs to repent with true repentance (14:3) rather than cheap grace (ch.6). They need to weep over their sin and truly change rather than just tell God they are merely "sorry" and continue adulterating themselves to other nations. How then can we worship God in spirit and in truth? We need to be faithful and loyal to our First Love, to seek satisfaction and worth from Him alone, to realize that He alone is our Source and that settling for anything less is cutting ourselves off from the fullness He longs to bring. We need to realize that when we run to other things or people before running to God that we are committing spiritual adultery. None of us probably purposely tries to cheat on God but realizing the dynamics of our relationship with Him with help us stay faithful. |
| WHAT IS GOD'S RESPONSE? Hosea 11:3-4, 8;14:4-6 Hosea was still faithful to Gomer even when she was faithless. To Israel, God so tenderly cries out to "How can I give you up Ephraim?" No matter what they've done, He just can't forget them and leave them. And oh, how God longs to restore us to Himself because it was us and only us that he ever had His heart set on when He sent His only Son to live His life to die. "How can I give you up Ephraim (or place your name there)?" How can God give us up? There is no one else His heart is aching for, there is no other love He desires but ours. |
| WORSHIP Christianity is like marriage in the same way that worship to God is like sex in marriage. Imagine a husband and wife being intimate on their marriage bed, then in the middle of making love the wife yells out her old ex-boyfriend's name. Her body is there yes, but where is her heart, her mind, her soul? It's the same thing when we go into church on Sunday and worship God with our mouths, our body is there yes, but where is our heart, our spirit, our soul??????? God says in Hosea 6:6 "I don't want your sacrifices- I want your life; I don't want your offerings- I want you to know Me; (I don't want your praise- I want your life.)" Once this generation sees God no more just as a Friend or Father but rather as a Lover who is passionately in love with us and will settle for nothing less than the object of His obsession which is our lives, then this generation will be transformed with true worshippers. And once Christians learn how to be true worshippers, others are going to be drawn to God because of the powerful presence that He will be in our lives. |
| Adultery has to be the gnarliest sin because a man has given his whole heart and body to his wife and then she throws it away to other people that don't even matter. Remember this though, that regardless of the magnitude of your sin, God says, "How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I give YOU up?" |
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| February 2001 |