The Lord God desires intimacy with His people, the Church, His Bride. He'll use your dry times, your desperate times, to draw you closer to Himself. He desires a relationship with you that has you leaning joyfully upon Him, and not leaning upon our own resourcefulness, or the ways of the world.
In Hosea 2:14, the Word says that God allures us.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her."
God wants us so deeply He woos us, He "allures" us. The word, allure, means (1) to attract something desirable; entice, (2) to be highly, often subtly, attractive (American Heritage College Dictionary).
Let's look at GOD'S intention toward us in Hosea 2:14-20.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt. “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘Ishi,’ and no longer will you call me ‘Baali.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD (Hosea 2:14-20).
In verses 16 and 17 it says,
" 'And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘Ishi’ and no longer will you call me 'Baali.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more."
Ishi means "my husband," whereas Baali means only "my lord." The Church will no longer cry out for things of gods —little "g"— of this world but will be a thing of the past and totally uninteresting.
God does it want a Church that is merely "playing house" with Him. His desire is that the Body of Christ mature and not act as children wanting their own way, acting as if God is supposed to be obedient to their whims and serve them.
"They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep’ " (Luke 7:32).
He wants us to KNOW HIM intimately. He wants us beyond those childish behaviors and become matured in the Kingdom of God. We must grow past the games and role-playing.
(To be continued...)
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