Heaven Can Wait

Hos 5:15 I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.

Hos 5:15 I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.

In this last verse of Hosea 5 we see what really expects of us. Wrath is not what He desires to give His people, rather it is the tool we force Him to use to get our attention. Will we rebel until we are utterly destroyed or will we come to our senses, recognize the error of our way, and return repenting humbly.

It is easy to get to the idea that God looks smugly down at his puny creation and wants to see us grovel for our measly lives. This is a very unfortunate and distorted picture of God’s character and what He really wants of us. We place ourselves in the position of needing mercy when we sin. The whole point is for us to seek Him. Jesus said seek first the Kingdom of God. He said, “Come to me all who are heavily leaden and I will give you rest.” He told us he came for the sinners, to save the lost, to set the captives free. He spoke to Peter of giving him the keys to kingdom. It seems to me that Peter was to open the door and allow the captives to escape sin’s binding power. Jesus spoke of the rich having the hardest time finding salvation. The reason, it seems, is because as the keepers of the cage they lived with the illusion they were already in the best place. What they failed to realize was that their power was an illusion, their power was over an empty cage, and in the end the king of hell is just as damned as the lowliest sinner who refuses God’s mercy to the end.