“I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.” (Hosea 14:4)
After pleading with the people to return to God, the prophet Hosea prophesies the words of the Lord in Hosea 14:4. We see God’s mercy and willingness to accept them if they turn to Him.After Solomon had built the temple God spoke to Solomon. He said, “If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14) He was willing to receive the people and answer their prayer if they repented even if He had shut off the rain from their land and plagued it with locust and pestilence. (2 Chronicles 7:13) And repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, the Lord is merciful and calls the people to repentance. Some examples can be found in Psalms 106:44, Isaiah 55:7, Jeremiah 3:12-14, Ezekiel 18:21-22, 30-32, Joel 2:1-32 and Leviticus 16. In all these examples we see God’s provision for returning to the Lord and reconciliation with Him. These Scriptures and more demonstrate God’s desire for man to be reconciled to Him.
But nothing surpasses or exemplifies God’s love and mercy more than sending Jesus. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) All the sacrificial rituals and ceremonies were a foreshadow or picture of what Jesus, the Messiah would do. He would be the final, irrefutable and guaranteed forgiveness of mankind for eternity. And He came and became the sacrificial Lamb of God. God’s provision for man. “For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause He is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” (Hebrews 9:13-15)
The Lord didn’t wait for us to clean up our act, make a sacrifice and repent. He initiated salvation for us, while we were still in our sin, while we were His enemies and even while we were not even born. “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” (Romans 5:8-11)
Many don’t see God as a loving and merciful God. This is because they are seeing God through the eyes of the writers of the Old Testament. Jesus, the Messiah hadn’t died for sin yet. Sin is death. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) And although God is love and merciful, He is also just and must punish sin. In the Old Testament there was no atonement. There were the animal sacrifices, but that was only for a year’s sin. And sacrifices had to be made continually for sin. It wasn’t eternal. Only the eternal Son of God, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, Who was pure and holy in everything could take away sin forever and reconcile man to God eternally. So, people see the punishment for sin in the Old Testament, not knowing that there is a new covenant. (Hebrews 9:13-15)
Proclaim the Better than Good News, the Gospel! Jesus has taken our sin away! He has suffered death for us! Believe on Him and your sins are forgiven and taken away! Death is no longer a part of us! How do we receive this marvelous gift? First, we must believe in Jesus. Believe He is God, the Second Person of the Godhead, Who is with God and has been and will be with the Father for eternity. Believe He is Who He said He is. Believe in His sacrificial work of love for us. Then repent. Make a sincere decision to sin no longer. Can we do it? Not on our own strength, but with the help of the Lord, He takes away our sin and the desire for sin. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13) Then by faith believing that what Jesus said is true, receive His gift of love and mercy. Surrender your life to Him, your dreams, visions, goals and past. Give it all to Him. And immediately, Jesus is present in your life through the Holy Spirit indwelling, sealed forever as His.
He still wants to draw people to Himself. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2Peter 3:9) The Lord doesn’t want anyone to perish. In this age of mercy and grace, He patiently waits for all who will come to Him.
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