The BROKEN being redeemed

A story of the BROKEN being redeemed.

Many people may have heard of the story in the beginning of the book of Hosea, which talks about Hosea and Gomer. Gomer was a prostitute. God spoke to Hosea and told him to take Gomer as his wife and to start a family with her. First off, imagine how many excuses Hosea could have made up to explain why he shouldn’t do this. Surely, there would be a ton of humiliation that he would have to endure. Whatever name he had made for himself, well that was tossed out of the window. This was not an easy task and it took strong faith, but Hosea was obedient to the Lord’s command. Hosea takes Gomer as his wife and has children with her. Then Gomer decides to leave Hosea and go back to her life of prostitution. God tells Hosea to buy back Gomer. Again, the humiliation that must be endured. Yet, Hosea is again obedient to the Lord. He buys Gomer and takes her as his wife again. This is pretty much the story in a short sense, but lets look at a few things.

First, we can see a beautiful picture of Christ. This is exactly what He did for us. We are ALL Gomer in this story. Christ is obviously Hosea. We are filled with baggage and shame. We have fallen short in so many ways. We are flesh driven people, who have traded the image of the incorruptible God, for the image of corruptible man. Yet, Christ was sent by God to pay for our sin, so that we could be HIS!

Second, I want to look at this in the eyes of Gomer. Imagine how she felt when Hosea took her to be his wife. I can’t help but feel like she was thinking about who she was before. I know she was thinking why in the world Hosea would want to be with her. It seems like it would be so easy for Hosea to remind her of that as well. Most people who were in Hosea’s shoes would’ve probably given her all these guidelines and rules for her to abide by because of her past. But looking at this story, I actually see the opposite. I feel like Hosea took Gomer and made her feel so loved. I feel like he was gentle with her. I feel like he made her feel more wanted than she had ever felt in her life. I feel like he gave her a sense of purpose. I think back to when my family adopted my two brothers. We didn’t bring them home and tell them that they’re living with us, but they are still not really part of our family. We didn’t remind them of who they were before they came to us. NO! We took them in, hugged them, kissed them, and welcomed them with loving arms. We told them how much we loved them. We showed them how excited we were for them to be part of the family. This is exactly how I imagine Hosea treated Gomer and this is exactly how Christ treated us.

Many of us come to Christ and we look at our past failures. We look at the sin in our life and it hinders us from experiencing the fullness of God’s love for us. We think to ourselves this is too good to be true. We wonder how God can overlook the things that we have done. We can’t except that he ACTUALLY sees us as righteous. We live in the same guilt that I imagine Gomer was living in, even though Hosea was looking past who she was and was loving her as his prized possession.

Then there are also some who come to Christ and truly experience the love that He offers and excepts it with a whole heart. They finally feel the weight thrown off their shoulders. They finally feel wanted and cherished. Some continue to live in this freedom and joy, but for some people, they slowly fall away and run back to the life that they had been saved from. This is exactly what happened with Gomer. She left Hosea and went back to prostitution. Even though Hosea had lavished her with his love, she was drawn back to her old lifestyle, being deceived by Satan’s schemes. This is where many believers are. They have felt the goodness of the Lord, but have slowly fallen. Again, as we look at this story, Hosea goes and buys back his wife. What he says to her next is absolutely amazing. He says, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way towards you.” He doesn’t look at her and scold her for what she did. Instead, he renews their vowels. He restores the relationship. He offers her redemption.

This is Jesus Christ! He didn’t welcome us as children and then say “I’m done with you” the moment that we messed up or ran away. NO! He pursued us. He chased us down and said, “I’m still here. I still love you. I still want you. I still honor you.”

We cannot live like Gomer. We cannot hold our heads down. We cannot live in shame and guilt. We must live in the understanding that our sins our forgiven. Forgotten. Paid for. GONE! If the story were to go on, I imagine that Gomer would finally see how much Hosea loves her, and that would finally free her from all that she has done, and cause her to love him back. Christ didn’t do all that He did, for us to live in our shame. He did what he did for us to see how much He truly loves us. He picked us up, and looked at us with grace in His eyes, so that we would long for Him with all we have.

Submitted by: Ross Mitchell