Ever hear a song that you just love and you can't get enough of it, so you proceed to play it again and again and again determined to suck it dry of all it's awesomeness?
Well, that happens to me a lot. But the past few weeks it's been these words that I keep coming back to and reading just like one of those songs you can't get enough of:
Hosea 2-3
(Here are my FAVORITE highlights from The Message version.)
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And now, here's what I'm going to do.
I am going to start all over again.
I'm taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date.
And I'll court her.
I'll give her bouquets of roses.
I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope.
She'll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was first out of Egypt.
At that time, you'll address me, 'Dear Husband!'
Never again will you address me, 'My Slave Master!'
And then I'll marry you for GOOD - FOREVER!
I'll marry you TRUE and PROPER.
In LOVE and TENDERNESS.
Yes, I'll marry you and NEITHER LEAVE YOU NOR LET YOU GO.
You'll KNOW ME, God, for who I really am.
Then God ordered me, 'Start all over. Love your wife again. Love here the way, I, God love the Israelite people.
I did it. I paid GOOD MONEY to get her back.
It cost me the price of a slave.
Then I told her, 'From now on you're living with me. You're living with me and I'm living with you.'
They'll come back chastened to reverence before God and his good gifts. READY for the END OF THE STORY OF HIS LOVE!!
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Though we have developed some distorted ideas of what Love is and what Love looks like, true Love comes ready to show us who he really is. He is coming for his bride. He HAS come for his bride. I want to live in and with THAT Love.
Love is not a Slave Master,
Love is a Husband,
and we are Love's Bride.
I am part of Love's Bride.
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