"Come, let us return to the Lord."
Isn’t that what you want, sisters? To Return?
Turn from the sins, from the guilt and shame, from the rot, and turn to God, our father and husband, our Creator and King.
Let’s encourage one another with these words.
First observation: These verses are not spoken by one individual – they were spoken for each other, as a people, as a nation, as siblings, as wives. It's an "us" thing. What a challenge that is to us, girls.
How much time do we spend encouraging one another toward repentance? How are we doing at holding one another accountable in this way?
Here, the repentance is corporate. It's not one man on behalf of a nation or a people. It's a corporate cry, a corporate call toward renewed fellowship with the Lord.
What does it mean to return to the Lord? What does it take? What does He want from you?
This is where those memory verses come in. You know what the Lord is asking, specifically, of you, because you've been praying about it for weeks. You've spent time dwelling on a verse or thought, seeking the Lord about what He is asking of you.
The Lord is not interested in you going through the motions, is He? Would you be? If someone you loved was pulling away, it would not be made better by efforts toward cleaning your house or buying you dinner. You can't "say it with flowers" here, or buy Him a box of chocolates that somehow gets you out of every wrong turn or misstep.
It’s about relationship. God wants you, not your deeds alone.
6:3, the Israelites are encouraging one another to “press on” to acknowledge the Lord. It’s not just a tip of the hat, but a desire to push forward (and keep pushing forward) in our relationship with Him. And it’s important to note that we are here inspired to encourage one another. We are not in this place alone.
Next observation:
The very fact that we can return to God is a beautiful picture of His grace. That He wants us means everything. He isn’t casting us out. He isn’t asking us to “pay” him for his favor. We cannot purchase it.
We can’t pay for our own sins. We can’t offer him anything for our atonement. He wants a broken spirit and a contrite heart. These are not deeds. They are attitudes. They are internal, not external. They aren’t broken promises and actions, like going to church more, getting involved in something, reading more. They are relational.
Hosea is a clear picture to us of God’s grace. And God offers that gift to us because of His love for us. Without His unending, unfathomable, unfailing love for us, He cannot abide our sinful presence. His holiness demands that He is also surrounded by holiness. And that, dear ones, is why He poured out His grace on us. So that we could be near Him. He saw that our sins kept us from Him, and He had to do something about it. He longed for us.
That is where grace comes in.
To understand it, to understand how He feels about us, we have to understand Him. We have to try to grasp His holiness and understand why He wants holiness for us.
“It is essential to the infinite righteousness of His nature to love righteousness wherever He beholds it.”
“A love of holiness cannot be without a hatred of everything that is contrary to it.”
~ Stephen Charnock, “The Existence and Attributes of God”
Holiness is defined as being set apart for the worship and service of God. We know that we can’t be holy apart from the Spirit of God. And once we are His, we are made holy. We are set apart.
He loved us so much, He didn’t want to be without us. So he made us holy. He set us apart for Himself. And He asks us to continually choose a life of holiness. It’s not that we can lose it, that sanctification; instead, we can still choose to love other things more than Him. We can still choose to not live as though we are set apart for Him, and this grieves Him. It has no affect on our eternal relationship with Him, nor on our salvation. That is one doodle that can’t be undid, homeskillet.
He’s just asking us to choose not to hurt Him.
6:6 – For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
What God wanted from his people was for them to be merciful and to acknowledge Him. What they DID instead was make sacrifices and offerings. He was looking at their hearts, their attitudes, not their deeds. And they just didn't get it.
God wants you to want relationship with Him, not merely to walk a certain line. Your deeds will never earn you that kind of fellowship with Him.
Instead, He wants your heart. He wants to be your Valentine.
