Wednesday August 05th, 2020
Memorize: Revelation 19:7
« Let us rejoice and be happy and give God glory! Give God glory, because the wedding of the Lamb has come. And the Lamb’s bride has made herself ready. »
Read: Hosea 2:14-23
After the ministry of Amos, God called Hosea to carry on preaching to the people of Israel. His message to the people was to stop their idol-worship and turn to God.
The Lord spoke to Hosea and told him to marry a woman who would be unfaithful to him.
God was showing Hosea (and Israel) how He felt about their unfaithfulness towards Him. Hosea’s wife was unfaithful by choosing to love other men, just as Israel had chosen to worship heathen idols instead of being loyal to their Lord.
Even though Hosea’s wife ran away from him to go live with other men, he loved her so much that he went out and looked for her. When he found her, he paid silver to buy her back so that she could stay with him once again.
Is there going to be a real wedding in Heaven?
When a man and a woman get married, they promise to love each other and be faithful to one another. God had kept His promise of love and faithfulness—His people had not!
God compares His relationship with Israel to the relationship between a husband and wife. We, the Church, have now become the bride of Jesus Christ!
As Hosea showed his love for his wife by paying the price to get her back, so Jesus came to the world to look for us, to save us and to bring us back to God (Ephesians 5:25). But Jesus did not buy us back with silver—He bought us with His precious blood by dying for us (1 Peter 1:18-19).
As the bride of Jesus, we must stay pure and be ready for Him. We do not know when He is coming to take us to be with Him. When He does, there is going to be a great feast in Heaven—a wedding—when we go to live with Jesus forever!
Study questions
- In your own words, explain in detail what the Bible means by saying that we (the church) are the bride of Christ.
- Give a definition of the word faithfulness.
- How can we remain faithful to God?
Author: Dave Strehler
Text edited by Naomie
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