The Vineyard
Dear Friends:
The prophet Hosea was asked to marry a prostitute to make a point to the Kingdom of Israel. The nations was totally unfaithful to God, and He wanted to make a bold statement about how bad things were. So He told a righteous man, Hosea, to do something quite unthinkable—-have marital relations with a woman whose entire vocation has been commit adultery! It was a sin for Hosea to even associate with her, and here’s God telling him to marry her and treat her like a good wife should be treated!!
I do not doubt that God loved Hosea, but God does call His servants to do some unusual things at times. But Hosea did not demur or protest, he allowed God to use Him for a greater purpose. Something within Hosea saw what he did with his life as bigger than his own “religious spotlessness” or need to keep himself unsullied by the sins of others. He was prepared to do whatever he was called to do to please God. He is referred to as a “minor prophet” because of the length of his book in the Old Testament, but any man that would live the life and choose to be used by God in such an unheard of way is a “master/major” prophet in my opinion. Most men would simply ignore, but men like Hosea, Amos, Moses, Joshua, Abraham and other heroes of the Bible paid attention and faithfully executed the assigned tasks.
Why? The youngest one living here taught me why these heroes and martyrs obeyed Him. They wanted Him to be proud. It sounds almost childish, but as I have listened to the youngest respond to me when I am disappointed with him, or when it takes two times to get his attention, he looks at me and whispers, “I just want you to be proud of me..” And he does. Nothing dissuades him or causes him to stop dead in his track as the suggestion (from me) that if he does this or that, I would not be proud of him.
A seven year wants me to be proud of him more than anything else. It is his greatest goal and his coveted reward—-that His dad is proud of him. Can there be a better reason for obeying God—-my heavenly Father? Can there be any greater satisfaction than to hear Him say, ‘I am so proud of you!”
And so a child has helped me understand the devotion of the great men of old where professors and theologians could not. “I want my father to be proud of me”. What a powerful rule to live by.
Warmly,
Dean Barley
The Vineyard
Dean@VineyardCamp.com
336 351 2070
919 360 8493 (Mobile)
Yorumlar