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"Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord; or I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion." Jeremiah 3:14.
In the Book of Hosea, God instructed the prophet Hosea to marry a woman of whoredoms. God used the marriage of Hosea and the woman, Gomer, to illustrate the relationship between God and Israel. Gomer remained faithful to Hosea for only a little while, then left him for other lovers and conceived children by them.
When we, born again believers, turn from the will of God to pursue our own interests, we leave God just as Gomer left Hosea for another man (or men). We enter into spiritual adultery just as Gomer committed adultery with her lovers. In Exodus 20:2, 3, God said, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me." In Mark 12:29-30, Jesus said, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment." This means anything that robs us from giving God all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind or all of our strength must be abandoned - cut off - in order to give ourselves wholly to the will of God.
In Hosea 2:2, God said, "Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her sight, And her adulteries from between her breasts". God wants believers to stop pursuing our own interests, return to Him and live in His will for our lives. "Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the Lord, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon." Isaiah 55:6-7
Eventually Hosea bought back Gomer for fiften pieces of silver, a homer of barley and a half homer of barley. She then became his wife again. Likewise, God wants what belongs to Him. If we have sinned against His will for our lives, the Blood of Jesus paid for it. That is why God sent Jesus to suffer and die for our sins. We were separated from God through Adam's transgression. We were under the rulership of Satan. God wanted what was His. So he sent Jesus to buy us back with His own blood. "And I said to her, 'You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man--so, too, will I be toward you.'" Hosea 3:3
God also promises in Jeremiah 3:15, "And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding." Pastors are God's gift to believers to teach us knowledge and understanding so that we can abide in the will of God.
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