Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2022 15:12:04 GMT -5
Forgiven By: Amy Boucher Pye
Click here for the Audio Message
Go, show your love to your wife again, . . . Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.
Hosea 3:1
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Hosea 3:1–5
Although Tasian Nkundiye murdered many of Laurencia Niyogira’s family in the Rwandan genocide, they are now next door neighbours. He said, “Ever since I wrote to her from prison, confessing to my crimes and asking her for forgiveness, she has never once called me a killer . . . She has set me free.”
Forgiveness and restoration lie at the heart of a project involving six reconciliation villages where victims and perpetrators live together. One person leading this project remarked that for Rwanda to heal, people need to “confront their innermost feelings . . . so suffering and anger” don’t rise up again.
This hard but hopeful modern-day story reminds me of Hosea in the Old Testament, whom the Lord asked to foster forgiveness in his own home. When Hosea’s wife left him, God asked him to love her as He “loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods” (Hosea 3:1).
Note that Hosea made a list of conditions for them both to follow: she’d live with him for many days; she’d not be promiscuous; he’d act in the same way towards her (v. 3). So too have those in the Rwandan village established a pattern of life that includes conflict resolution and running a farming cooperative together.
Forgiveness involves a journey to freedom, which can be difficult but can also bring joy and fulfilment. Ultimately, all who follow Jesus stand in their identity as those forgiven and freed by His death on the cross.
Reflect & Pray
How difficult do you find forgiveness? How can you lean on God to help you in this area?
Forgiving Father, thank You for sending Your Son to save and free me. Help me share the wonder of this gift with others.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Hosea 14:1 captures the theme of the book of Hosea, “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.” This verse includes a key word of the book—return. Again and again in Hosea we see God, who is faithful and true to His covenant, calling unfaithful Israel to return to Him. The Hebrew word translated “return” (šûb, pronounced shoob) is a common Old Testament term. The verb form appears more than 1,050 times (the twelfth most frequently used verb in the Old Testament), and eighteen times in Hosea. The most theologically rich usages of it concern Israel’s turning to the Lord in repentance, as we see in Hosea 3:5 : “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.”
Arthur Jackson
Hosea 3
King James Version
3 Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:
3 And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.
4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.
Click here for the Audio Message
Go, show your love to your wife again, . . . Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites.
Hosea 3:1
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Hosea 3:1–5
Although Tasian Nkundiye murdered many of Laurencia Niyogira’s family in the Rwandan genocide, they are now next door neighbours. He said, “Ever since I wrote to her from prison, confessing to my crimes and asking her for forgiveness, she has never once called me a killer . . . She has set me free.”
Forgiveness and restoration lie at the heart of a project involving six reconciliation villages where victims and perpetrators live together. One person leading this project remarked that for Rwanda to heal, people need to “confront their innermost feelings . . . so suffering and anger” don’t rise up again.
This hard but hopeful modern-day story reminds me of Hosea in the Old Testament, whom the Lord asked to foster forgiveness in his own home. When Hosea’s wife left him, God asked him to love her as He “loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods” (Hosea 3:1).
Note that Hosea made a list of conditions for them both to follow: she’d live with him for many days; she’d not be promiscuous; he’d act in the same way towards her (v. 3). So too have those in the Rwandan village established a pattern of life that includes conflict resolution and running a farming cooperative together.
Forgiveness involves a journey to freedom, which can be difficult but can also bring joy and fulfilment. Ultimately, all who follow Jesus stand in their identity as those forgiven and freed by His death on the cross.
Reflect & Pray
How difficult do you find forgiveness? How can you lean on God to help you in this area?
Forgiving Father, thank You for sending Your Son to save and free me. Help me share the wonder of this gift with others.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Hosea 14:1 captures the theme of the book of Hosea, “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God.” This verse includes a key word of the book—return. Again and again in Hosea we see God, who is faithful and true to His covenant, calling unfaithful Israel to return to Him. The Hebrew word translated “return” (šûb, pronounced shoob) is a common Old Testament term. The verb form appears more than 1,050 times (the twelfth most frequently used verb in the Old Testament), and eighteen times in Hosea. The most theologically rich usages of it concern Israel’s turning to the Lord in repentance, as we see in Hosea 3:5 : “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.”
Arthur Jackson
Hosea 3
King James Version
3 Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:
3 And I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.
4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:
5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.