{"id":7592,"date":"2021-07-04T14:37:59","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T19:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/?p=7592"},"modified":"2021-07-04T14:37:59","modified_gmt":"2021-07-04T19:37:59","slug":"devotional-on-hosea-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-hosea-31\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Hosea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1347px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-acVK0QNdFxk\/YOCYfsYiwQI\/AAAAAAABKqo\/X4bRfnBalqwFTnMWyDTWyAUaipeDhlDpACPcBGAsYHg\/s1347\/2013-06-07%2B16.33.10.jpg\" width=\"1347\" height=\"841\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 &#8211; Amish country &#8211; Arthur, IL<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nIt isn\u2019t over till it\u2019s over<br \/>\nHosea 12: What are you waiting for? Return to your God!<br \/>\nHosea is unique in the Old Testament in his understanding of God.  The opening \u201cliving parable\u201d of his enduring love of his unfaithful wife flavors the entire book.  Now, it isn\u2019t all romantic love.  There\u2019s some strong medicine here, what could be called \u201ctough love.\u201d  Still, it&#8217;s love.  The Almighty is so in love with these people that he can\u2019t let them go.  The God who could wipe them out in a second instead calls to them and reasons with them and, yes, uses some tough love in dealing with them.  In this passage the Lord illustrates his intentions by appealing to history.  He reminds them that Jacob started out as a \u201cheel\u201d who even tried to manipulate his Creator.  The Lord says that, in the end, he won and Jacob was changed into a new person.  Now, this same God turns his attention to the current sorry state of things.  He tells this rebellious nation that he loves them too much to cast them away.  He says that in his love, he won\u2019t give up and he won\u2019t give in.  They might as well surrender to it now because, ultimately, he&#8217;ll win.  Today, I\u2019m reminded that God doesn\u2019t give up on people and I shouldn\u2019t give up on them either.  The person who seems the most lost; who has burned his bridges and declared his abandonment of the Lord is still on God\u2019s radar screen.  Really, it isn\u2019t over till God says it\u2019s over!<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord doesn\u2019t give up on people and I shouldn\u2019t give up on them either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It isn\u2019t over till it\u2019s over Hosea 12: What are you waiting for? Return to your God! Hosea is unique in the Old Testament in his understanding of God. The opening \u201cliving parable\u201d of his enduring love of his unfaithful wife flavors the entire book. Now, it isn\u2019t all romantic love. There\u2019s some strong medicine [&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":[130,411,473,958],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7592"}],"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=7592"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15375,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7592\/revisions\/15375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}