Hosea 1:10 “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.'”

I don’t know that there is any person (apart from Jesus) in the whole Bible whose life itself was more a message from God than Hosea. His wife Gomer seems like a caricature, but I’ve read some reports on the Internet just recently of people who have been “in her league,” at least. The thing is, God told Hosea to marry her, (verse 2) and their relationship was a graphic illustration of God’s relationship with His people. Apparently the younger boy in the household wasn’t even Hosea’s child, but his birth prompted this marvelous Word from the Lord. This calls to mind Paul’s words, written hundreds of years later: “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:12-13) Hosea’s household was an illustration of the scandalous love of God, who calls not only the physical descendants of Abraham, but all mankind to be His children, spiritual Israelites. Just as the boy Lo-Ammi came to be Ammi, (“Not my people” vs. “My people”) so Gentiles who acknowledge Jesus as Lord by faith cease to be “non-Jews” and become heirs of all the promises of God to Abraham. (Romans 4:16) However, we need to be clear that the younger boy being accepted didn’t exclude the two older children. “Replacement Theology” is a deception and lie any way you look at it. It is when we recognize and rejoice in God’s amazing grace that “sons of the living God” multiply to the point they can’t be counted.

Growing up in an intact, functional family and having established one myself, households like Hosea’s are hard for me to imagine, but I know they exist even today. I am surrounded by wounded people who are desperate to hear God call them “my people,” but they just don’t know it. I am to proclaim God’s grace and love to them, never forgetting that I am just as much in need of it as they are, even though I have received and acknowledged more of it than they have to this point. I certainly didn’t earn being born into the family that I had! I am to recognize that absolutely anyone can become as much a child of God as I am, and consistently issue the invitation to them to do so. I want to take part in their number becoming like the sand on the seashore!

Father, thank You for Your absolutely incredible grace. Thank You for the privilege of being a channel of that grace. I ask You to make me more and more effective in that, so that people may recognize and receive Your love for them and repent and believe, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!