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I will show love to those I called ‘Not loved.’

And to those I called ‘Not my people,’ I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’ And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’” Then the Lord said to me, “Go and love your wife again, even though she commits adultery with another lover. This will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though the people have turned to other gods and love to worship them.” So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine. Hosea 2:23-3:2 (NLT)

Heavenly Father, this passage in Hosea tells our story. We’re the ones who had no claim on your love or place in your family, until you gave us both in generous amounts in the gospel. No one ever has, or ever will, love us to the degree and with the delight, that you do.

Like the first recipients of these words, all of us are guilty of spiritual adultery. We often turn to idols, false loves, and broken cisterns when you’re not enough. We are prone to wander; but (Hallelujah!) you’re readier to forgive than we are to sin.

Forgive us when we think of our sins as monochromatic in a world of Technicolor sinners. Forgive us when we view our need for grace as vanilla and bland, compared to the spiciness and dicey-ness of other people’s failings. Free us when we believe we are less needful of your daily mercies than those around us.

Father, thank you for buying us back—for redeeming our lives from sin and death, from un-righteousness and self-righteousness, from hopelessness and arrogance. The cost wasn’t “silver, barley, and wine”; but the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. What a gospel we have and trust. What a God and Father you are to us.

Our hope is built on nothing less, nothing, more, and nothing other than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. May we live and love to your glory. So very Amen we pray, with worship, love and awe, in Jesus’ name.

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