July 4th, 20

JULY 4,  We’ve Been Bought Back

Today’s readings are Hosea 2 – 5 and Hebrews 2.  We are reading from the New Living Translation.

We’ve been bought back.  We’ve been fought for.  And He has won.  Hosea compares our rebellion towards God to that of prostitution, and the accompanying anguish of a husband whose wife has become a prostitute.  This is the kind of anguish that God feels towards his people who have rebelled against him and turned away.  

Hosea is told to make this clear to everyone by marrying a prostitute.  But this prostitute continues in her prostitution.  Hosea is not told to give up on her.  He’s told to go and buy her back, to pay the price for her freedom.  Hosea 3:2 says,

So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and five bushels of barley and a measure of wine.

It was a steep price, but Hosea paid what he had to, in order for his rebellious bride to come back and be free.  But someone far greater than Hosea, has bought us back.  And he did it with something far more valuable than silver and gold. God has paid the ultimate price for his Bride.  He lowered himself.  He took off his royal robes, as it were, and put on human flesh. He bought us with His own blood.

He became a human so that he might die, and break the power of the Devil – the power of fear, death and the grave. By dying, he paid the ultimate price for our freedom.  He died so that we could live, love, hope, and have a future.  No longer do we need to live in rebellion, as slaves and in prostitution.  Having been loved like this, we, in turn, are able to love.  Not just because of the example he showed us, but because, by his Spirit.  He now comes to live in us.

The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. (Rm 8:11 NLT)

The same power that enabled him to live, die, and be raised to new life, now lives in you – Christian!  His Spirit enables you to live, love, die and be raised to new life.  

He has bought you back! And now you are free!  Live in the power of the freedom He has won for you.

You are loved!