{"id":7562,"date":"2021-06-21T13:09:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T18:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7562"},"modified":"2021-06-21T13:09:26","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T18:09:26","slug":"devotional-on-hosea-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-hosea-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Hosea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-d8-W2aKl32Y\/YM-sMqARhyI\/AAAAAAABKjI\/NAsGx7JAj_opxtI6qc_hvr6iZe6ys5DEwCPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/PA077910.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2011 &#8211; Paris &#8211; taken from the Eiffel Tower &#8211; Level 2 &#8211; note the shadow<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nWho is this really?<br \/>\nHosea 1: The first time God spoke to Hosea&#8230;<br \/>\nThe book of Hosea contains no preface aside from the opening sentence or two.  There&#8217;s no wading into this pool.  Instead, we immediately jump off into the deep end!  The thing is it appears it&#8217;s that way for Hosea too.  Here&#8217;s a godly man, minding his own business suddenly hearing from God.  Having grown up in the &#8217;60&#8217;s I loved Bill Cosby&#8217;s &#8220;Noah.&#8221;  Cosby imagines Noah hearing from the Lord and then asking &#8220;who is this really?&#8221;  If, out of nowhere, being told to build an ark was a strange command imagine what it\u2019s like for Hosea when his first message from God is to go, find a prostitute, and marry her!  &#8220;Who is this really?&#8221; wouldn&#8217;t have been an unreasonable question.  However, Hosea recognizes the Voice of God and he responds, not as Bill Cosby might imagine, but in immediate, humble obedience.  God speaks, Hosea obeys.  We&#8217;ve hardly begun reading this book and before us is the line &#8220;Hosea did it.&#8221;  If I push everything back for a moment, before plunging on into the story, I can&#8217;t help but marvel at Hosea&#8217;s ability to hear, recognize, and then obey the Voice of God even though what he&#8217;s heard seems highly unreasonable.  Today, I can&#8217;t help but be impressed by that.<br \/>\nTake Away: We all need lessons from people like Hosea and Noah in learning to hear and recognize the voice of the Lord.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who is this really? Hosea 1: The first time God spoke to Hosea&#8230; The book of Hosea contains no preface aside from the opening sentence or two. There&#8217;s no wading into this pool. Instead, we immediately jump off into the deep end! The thing is it appears it&#8217;s that way for Hosea too. Here&#8217;s a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1501,6,7],"tags":[130,497,772],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7562"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15348,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7562\/revisions\/15348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}