The story of Hosea has some powerful lessons to teach us. Hosea’s situation is remarkable. His wife, Gomer, runs away and has children with other men. Though she is sexually unfaithful, God calls Hosea to take his wife back and fully show his love to her again. This story is meant as a parable about God and Israel. The Israelites had left God and were prostituting themselves spiritually to other gods, but God still loved them and wanted to show His love to them. But just look at God’s methods!

Read Hosea 2:1-12. What methods does God say He will use to pull Israel back to Himself? What would these experiences have felt like?

Hosea 2:2-3, 

Hosea 2:5-7

Hosea 2:8-9, 

Hosea 2:10

This story raises two important issues about the way we experience God when He is bringing us to repentance.

Image © Providence Collection from GoodSalt.com

First, we risk not recognizing that God is at work. When Israel went through such hard and painful experiences, it might have been hard for them to recognize that their God was working for their salvation. When our path is blocked by sharp thorns or we are walled in so that we don’t know where we are going (Hosea 2:6) — is this God? When our basic necessities disappear or we are embarrassed (Hosea 2:9-10) — could our Father be in the middle of it all? The truth is that whatever we feel, God is always working to bring us to repentance, because He loves us so very much.

Second, we risk misunderstanding God when He is at work. We may recognize that God is at work, but we don’t like what He’s doing. While we are feeling hurt and embarrassed, it is easy to blame God for being cruel, for not intervening, or for not caring. But God is always working to renew us through His covenant of love.

<–Sunday Tuesday–>

Amen!(1)

The post Monday: Wayward Israel appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/monday-wayward-israel/

Read Genesis 22:1-24. Out of nowhere and without explanation, God suddenly calls Abraham to offer his own child as a burnt offering. Can you imagine how Abraham must have felt? It was a totally revolting idea that a holy God should request that you sacrifice your own son. Even if Abraham thought that this was acceptable, what about God’s promises of an inheritance? Without his son, the promise would be gone.

Why did God ask Abraham to offer this sacrifice? If God knows everything, what was the point?

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

God’s request and its timing were not random. Indeed, it was calculated to exact the deepest possible anguish, for “God had reserved His last, most trying test for Abraham until the burden of years was heavy upon him, and he longed for rest.” — Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 147. Was this the test of a mad God? Not at all, for “the agony which he endured during the dark days of that fearful trial was permitted that he might understand from his own experience something of the greatness of the sacrifice made by the infinite God for man’s redemption.” — Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 154.

This was just a test — God never intended for Abraham to kill his son. This highlights something very important about the way God sometimes works. God may ask us to do something that He never intends for us to complete. He may ask us to go somewhere He never intends for us to arrive at. What is important to God is not necessarily the end, but what we learn as we are reshaped by the process.

Jesus may have been thinking about Abraham’s experience when He said to the Jews, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56, NIV). Abraham could have missed out on this insight, dismissing the instructions as from Satan. The key to Abraham’s surviving and learning through the whole process was his knowing God’s voice.

<–Sabbath Monday–>

Amen!(0)

The post Sunday: Abraham in the Crucible appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/sunday-abraham-in-crucible/