Each Spring, my sons and I engage in a pushup challenge. It isn’t a contest, but it surely is supposed to maintain us all mutually accountable and pressing on toward the identical goal. Each day for a whole month, we aim to do 100 pushups. They don’t must be done consecutively, but we each need to succeed in that total before the tip of the day.
Here’s what I’ve learned about doing pushups. It isn’t the primary few pushups that make essentially the most difference. It’s the previous few, once your arms are drained and also you’re tempted to provide up. The pushups you complete right if you’re tempted to quit are the pushups which have one of the best personal profit. So in the event you take a challenge like this, don’t quit too soon.
I’m grateful that after I observe the hand of God in my life and within the lives of those I like, that He doesn’t quit too soon. Even though I wouldn’t blame Him for wanting to provide up on us, that isn’t His pattern. And in the event you’ve been personally wondering if God has given up on you, I’m confident He hasn’t.
We are given a robust example of God’s patient, long-suffering nature within the second chapter of the prophetic book of Hosea. Look with me at what this chapter reveals to us.
Is There Anything You Desire More than God Himself?
Say to your brothers, “You are my people,” and to your sisters, “You have received mercy.”
“Plead along with your mother, plead-for she will not be my wife, and I’m not her husband— that she put away her whoring from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts; lest I strip her naked and make her as within the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. – Hosea 2:1-3
As was revealed in the primary chapter of Hosea’s book, the prophet Hosea married a girl named Gomer, who eventually became unfaithful to him and conceived multiple children outside the bonds of their marriage covenant.
Gomer’s behavior was the fruit of her false beliefs. Just because the culture of Israel on the time was steeped in false beliefs, so too was Gomer. In fact, Gomer’s life was meant to symbolically illustrate the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel. Just as that they had been spiritually unfaithful to God, so too was she unfaithful to Hosea.
Gomer had fallen into the identical trap that humanity, normally, often falls into. We find ourselves desiring something or someone apart from God to satisfy our deepest longings, then we pursue whatever we consider will bring us that level of satisfaction even when it hurts us and everybody around us.
Gomer selected sexual immorality because the vice that she believed would satisfy the longings of her soul. The nation of Israel on the time had chosen the identical thing. Maybe you’ve chosen that as well, or possibly something else. There’s no end to what we will change into hooked on in our attempts to fill the void in our souls.
The truth is, there’s nothing on this world that may satisfy the longings of the guts like Jesus. He who created us has designed us to live in a relationship with Him. If that relationship is missing from our lives, we’ll change into confused, empty, and dissatisfied. But once you discover life through Jesus, you’ll see that He, indeed, was the one you were eager for.
Are Your Setbacks Providentially Intended to Protect You?
Therefore I’ll hedge up her way with thorns, and I’ll construct a wall against her, in order that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers but not overtake them,and she or he shall seek them but shall not find them.Then she shall say,‘I’ll go and return to my first husband, or it was higher for me then than now.’ – Hosea 2:6-7
Have you ever experienced a season of life when it felt like things weren’t working thoroughly, and also you kept coming up against roadblocks of different types? How did you reply to those setbacks? Did you wonder if there was more to what you were experiencing than easy misfortune?
As the Lord spoke prophetically to the nation of Israel through Hosea, He described a season when Israel would have its way “hedge[d] up with thorns.” She can be blocked with partitions and unable to pursue the things she loved greater than the Lord.
Why would the Lord do that? Was it because He didn’t love Israel or because He loved Israel deeply? Likewise, in our lives, why would God providentially prevent us from taking our lives in certain directions? Could it’s because He loves us and needs to stop us from experiencing the pain that’s waiting for us on the opposite side of our misguided decisions?
The Lord revealed His purpose for doing this to Hosea when He said…
Then she shall say, ‘I’ll go and return to my first husband, for it was higher for me then than now.’ -Hosea 2:7b
God cares for you adequate to maintain you from mistakes you don’t even realize you’re about to make. He loves you adequate to attract you unto Himself. At present, that is precisely what the Holy Spirit is doing on this world. He’s guiding us back to our past love and reminding us that He’s the one we wanted all along.
The Day of a Restored Relationship with God Is Coming.
“And in that day, declares the Lord, you’ll call me ‘My Husband,’ and not will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I’ll remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and so they shall be remembered by name no more. And I’ll make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the sector, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the bottom. And I’ll abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I’ll make you lie down in safety. And I’ll betroth you to me without end. I’ll betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I’ll betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. – Hosea 2:16-20
During the times during which Hosea ministered, worship of the false deity Baal prevailed throughout the nation of Israel. They praised Baal after they were blessed with children. They praised Baal when their fields produced crops and the sky produced rain. They praised Baal when their wealth increased, but they forgot the Lord who had made them a nation and blessed them in additional ways than could possibly be counted.
But that won’t be the case without end. The day is coming when God’s people will not call on the names of false deities. The names of idols might be faraway from their lips, and they’ll acknowledge their real relationship with the Lord.
In that day, things might be so good that animals won’t attack humans and nations won’t threaten one another with war. God’s people will live in safety, righteousness, justice, love, mercy, and faithfulness. His people will know Him and can need to know Him.
That day is spoken of in multiple places in Scripture. It’s the day when Jesus will rule and reign on this earth. It’s the day when His kingdom might be fully established and experienced in all of its glory.
He shall judge between the nations, and shall resolve disputes for a lot of peoples;and so they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. – Isaiah 2:4
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a bit of child shall lead them. – Isaiah 11:6
No longer will there be anything accursed, however the throne of God and of the Lamb might be in it, and his servants will worship him. – Revelation 22:3
I look ahead to that day, but I’m also grateful that through Jesus, I experience a restored relationship with God without delay. I don’t must wait for these wonderful guarantees to be completely filled and realized on this earth for these blessings to already be experienced in my heart.
God Is Preparing His Bride for Eternal Glory.
And I could have mercy on No Mercy, and I’ll say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’” – Hosea 2:23b
I like the way in which Hosea 2 ends. It references the names that got to the kids born in chapter 1, children who were symbolically named “No Mercy” and “Not My People” to be able to illustrate the challenges Israel was going to face as they turned away from the presence and power of God.
But God graciously reveals that He hasn’t given up on them. He could have mercy on those that were attempting to live outside the blessings of His mercy. He will make those that haven’t been living as His people a part of His everlasting family. God is preparing His bride for everlasting glory, and that compassionate work was being illustrated through Hosea’s relationship with Gomer.
This very passage was also quoted by the apostle Paul within the ninth chapter of Romans.
What if God, desiring to point out his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, to be able to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but additionally from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who weren’t my people I’ll call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I’ll call ‘beloved.’”
“And within the very place where it was said to them, ‘You aren’t my people,’there they might be called ‘sons of the living God.’” – Romans 9:22-26
If God has been willing to reveal His great patience to the nation of Israel while wooing them unto Himself and even sending His Son, Jesus, their Messiah, to them to call them back, is it a far stretch to consider He would do the identical thing for you?
The truth is that God didn’t create humanity for us to live at a distance from Him. Man was created in God’s image and designed to have a deep, abiding, and healthy relationship with Him. If you’re contemplating these thoughts today, understand that the very incontrovertible fact that the Lord allowed these words to succeed in your heart demonstrates that He hasn’t given up on you. You may not feel deserving of this blessing, but God genuinely desires that you simply remain near to Him without end.
© John Stange, 2025 Originally published on Bible Study Headquarters. Used with permission.
Photo Credit:© Getty Images/coffeekai
John Stange is the Lead Pastor at Core Creek Community Church and a professor at Cairn University where he leads the Digital Media and Communication program. He also leads an internet community called Platform Launchers where he helps people construct message-based online platforms.
John has authored over 30 books and presently hosts several podcasts on the LifeAudio podcast network. His shows have been downloaded thousands and thousands of times by listeners throughout the world.
You can learn more about John’s ministry, books, and podcasts at BibleStudyHeadquarters.com.
