I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. Hosea 2:19
For awhile I have been praying, "God give me a heart like Hosea, a heart that breaks after what breaks your heart, a heart that desires to reach out to the lost of this world". Today I realized what it means to pray that prayer. I don't know if I am just extremely sensitive to the Holy Spirit due to my experience during the Pinky Promise Conference 2015 which I will blog about later, but today I felt my heart break. It hurts so much Beloved that all I can do is shed tears and implore our Heavenly Abba to grant us mercy.
These past few months our world has been riddled with violence, pain, hatred, and so much evilness. I nearly became immune to it, it slowly became an expectation to hear about something horrible happening in the news, I was no longer surprise, I was no longer affected. This past week was a prime example of evilness gaining strength in our nation. On June 17 around 8 pm in Charleston, South Carolina a young man, Dylann Roof, opened fire in a church Bible Study killing 9 people. This was a hate crime. This young white man went in to this predominantly African American church to kill the people there because they looked different from him. His actions disturbed me, his hate angered me but what broke me was the victims families response to him. They responded in love, a love that could only come from Jesus Christ. I was floored.. Loving/ forgiving is easy until you have something that you truly have to love someone through and forgive someone for. This family had every reason to respond in anger, in their emotions, with their hate, in fact it was expected...but when they responded differently it showed that love has the power to overcome any evil/hate. That's when you realize that you can't love completely out of your own strength, you need the supernatural grace of God. For He IS love.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. ~1 John 4:18
Today this love is under attack. It is being challenged and is being redefined by man. The part that hurts is that the Body of Christ is allowing it by our actions and convictions. My focus today is not even about the law that was passed that has now made Same-sex marriage legal in the United States. That isn't my focus because I trust Gods word, for his word is eternal and everything else is temporary. My focus is on the response of the body of Christ. We are divided church and confused and I just don't get it. The Word says that a house divided can not stand. We hesitate and walk in fear while knowing the truth. We sugarcoat and tone down the Gospel that has the ability to save and transform because we fear persecution. We hold our testimonies and are unprepared to provide a reason for our hope which is Jesus Christ. We need to stand on the truth of God and not our opinions of it. His word is clear.
For whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:16).
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).
We are called to live as people who are free, not using our freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16)
We are posting statements of "God is love, and it's not my place to judge.... while failing to mention that He is also Holy, righteous and we are called to be doers of the word, to submit ourselves therefore to God to resist the devil".
What happen to our conviction Church??
For whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:16).
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).
We are called to live as people who are free, not using our freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16)
We have Blood on our Hands.
I pray you hear my heart in this blog. Today I realize and literally felt this prayer in every part of me. My heart is breaking for this world and I can not contain my tears. So much so that I had to ask God for forgiveness. Forgiveness for focusing on earthly things like my career, my single status, my emotions, fear, guilt, shame about my past, need for money and car etc.. When he's been trying to get me in a place where I could be empty to be used by Him to minister to his people. Beloved do you feel it? Do you feel the breaking of Gods heart for this world?? Do you feel his yearning for these lost souls?? Or are you so focus on self like I was. So focus on what you need from God that you have turn deaf ears to His heart desire, so focus on your inadequacy that you forgot that God can use those very things your hiding to save someone soul. Is your comfort zone worth someone very soul and eternity?? Beloved we need to repent of our selfish ways and seriously pray for the Holy Spirit to wreck our hearts. I want to have a heart and life that yearns after the things of God. I want a heart like Hosea.
What does a heart like that look like?? I guess we have to first figure out who this Hosea was. Why was his story so powerful? Let's explore it together.
Hosea was a minor prophet who lived during the final days of the Northern Kingdom. Hosea had such a heart for God that God chose to use his family life as a symbol to represent His constant love, grace, mercy for an unfaithful nation, the Israelites. God ordered Hosea to marry Gomer, an adulterous/unfaithful women knowing full well she will step out on him. The crazy part is that all though his heart is constantly broken by her unfaithfulness, God orders him to continuously love her, to take her back and care for her. Hosea love for Gomer is a representation of Gods covenant love for the unfaithful Israelites.
Heart like Hosea Is:
1. Obedient- To marry a woman during that period of time with a reputation for being loose was to be an open target for ridicule. Can you imagine being a prophet telling people that God will punish the people for their unfaithfulness and hearing someone make a jab about your wife?? But Hosea didn't care what men thought of Him, he cared about what God has to say...and when he spoke he listen.
2. Sensitive to Gods voice- In today's generation we are sensitive to everyone and everything but God. We waver and flow from whichever opinions sounds the best to our ears. One of the biggest complaint that I hear is, "Well, how do I know that it's God and not me or the enemy??" You can only know someone you spend time with. You can only recognize the voice of someone you constantly listen to. There are too many people who have opinions about God yet don't KNOW Him.
3. Relentless in its Convictions- Hosea wasn't afraid to stand alone. Even if the attack came from home, from his peers he did not compromise his convictions to fit in. Even when everyone else was living for the world, he had determined in his heart that he would live and speak for God. We need that conviction again y'all.
4. Broken for what breaks God's heart. God loves people. He desires so much for them to come into his rest. He desires for them to be whole. He desires for them to come into the knowledge of Him. He desires for the least to be taken care of. He desires having fellowship with us. He desires for us to be able to approach his throne with reverence, adoration. He desires for no one to perish but for all to be saved through a relationship with his son Jesus Christ. Do you desire to see people saved? Set free? Delivered? Living boldly and completely in Him? You can answer yes to all those that's great! My follow up questions to that are when was the last time you shared Christ with someone? Do you live in the freedom that Christ died to give you or are you justifying sin in your life?
5. Filled with Unconditional love- One of the parts that brings me to tears is when Hosea redeems his wife. Hosea buys back his wife from slavery for way more than she was worth because God called him to love her. To have a heart like Hosea we need to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable unconditionally. We should treat people with more love, respect, honor than they deserve because Christ gave us more that we could ever hope for on that cross. He gave us a chance to be reconciled with our Heavenly Abba.
3. Relentless in its Convictions- Hosea wasn't afraid to stand alone. Even if the attack came from home, from his peers he did not compromise his convictions to fit in. Even when everyone else was living for the world, he had determined in his heart that he would live and speak for God. We need that conviction again y'all.
4. Broken for what breaks God's heart. God loves people. He desires so much for them to come into his rest. He desires for them to be whole. He desires for them to come into the knowledge of Him. He desires for the least to be taken care of. He desires having fellowship with us. He desires for us to be able to approach his throne with reverence, adoration. He desires for no one to perish but for all to be saved through a relationship with his son Jesus Christ. Do you desire to see people saved? Set free? Delivered? Living boldly and completely in Him? You can answer yes to all those that's great! My follow up questions to that are when was the last time you shared Christ with someone? Do you live in the freedom that Christ died to give you or are you justifying sin in your life?
5. Filled with Unconditional love- One of the parts that brings me to tears is when Hosea redeems his wife. Hosea buys back his wife from slavery for way more than she was worth because God called him to love her. To have a heart like Hosea we need to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable unconditionally. We should treat people with more love, respect, honor than they deserve because Christ gave us more that we could ever hope for on that cross. He gave us a chance to be reconciled with our Heavenly Abba.
Let's stop focusing on us Beloveds. Let's truly be free! Walk in obedience so you can lead someone to Christ. Resist the devil. Die daily to your flesh. Seek God! Let's live this life for real for real! Pray, Pray, Pray. It's time we took our place. Let's agree in prayer today.
Beloved Rise,
