Hosea
God desires to redeem those who are lost to him… none are outside his hand…
This truth really hit me in class the other day… that I so often fail to see that God’s heart is restoration for all who are lost. I get caught up in my own personal issues and fail to acknowledge the greater reality… that those who do not have Christ face the eternal ramifications of their sin without mercy. This is the greater reality in the world we live in… it is the overriding theme of God’s word and I see it as so encouraging in my life. Those who are found in Jesus have righteousness before God and will be forever restored with him… gaining eternal life through his blood.
1 John 5.12 “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life…”The flipside of this that I often forget, and I am broken hearted at my lack of living in this truth, is that those who do not have Jesus’ blood as their forgiveness and righteousness… are, well, literally toast. It’s not that God isn’t merciful… he is… that’s the whole point. Jesus sacrificed his son so that none would be lost outside of him… but people must glorify him as the Son of God and believe in him as Savior. Sadly enough I often fail to recognize the gravity of this… for this is truth. I am distraught at how I fail to care though… for those I love who do not have Christ’s forgiveness over them. This wrecks me actually… as I think of all who are in my family that don’t know Jesus. Those who don’t know Jesus are under God’s wrath… it’s that simple… there is no mercy for them because they have rejected God’s mercy in Jesus. God loves them… surely… it is so apparent… that’s what the cross means… God’s love and forgiveness and mercy. But those who reject the cross and spurn God’s son have… well… nothing… and honestly they deserve it every bit as much as I do. I deserve death but God has spared me… that’s TRUTH. Yeah… so this breaks my heart… to see that there are those who don’t know him and realize that I don’t do anything about it. God loves them… he desires them to know him… they are not outside of his mercy… BUT… they must choose him… they must accept his forgiveness and bow their knee to trust in Jesus Christ as God’s Son and their only hope for Salvation.
In many ways this is my practical application because many in my family will read this and hopefully this REALITY will change their hearts to seek God’s face and know him… or at least… I hope that it will awaken myself and them to the desperate need that we have for Christ as individuals… and the desperate circumstance that those we love are in. This is no light thing… and that’s what I am confessing to… that I have not treated it with the gravity it demands. The other practical thing I am going to be doing is praying daily for those I love to be awakened to God’s great mercy that they are lost without.
In many ways this is my practical application because many in my family will read this and hopefully this REALITY will change their hearts to seek God’s face and know him… or at least… I hope that it will awaken myself and them to the desperate need that we have for Christ as individuals… and the desperate circumstance that those we love are in. This is no light thing… and that’s what I am confessing to… that I have not treated it with the gravity it demands. The other practical thing I am going to be doing is praying daily for those I love to be awakened to God’s great mercy that they are lost without.
