Hosea 1 Devotional

A New Name for Outsiders

“Yet the number of the Israelites will be like the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or counted. And it will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”Hosea 1:10 (BSB)

Hosea's ministry begins with a command that is hard to read. The LORD tells him to marry a prostitute, so that his own household becomes a living picture of a land that has been unfaithful to the LORD (1:2). Hosea marries Gomer, and her children's names carry God's message: judgment on the house of Jehu (1:4), an end of compassion for Israel (1:6), and a son whose name declares that they are not God's people and he is not their God (1:9).

That last name sounds like the end of everything. But the very next verse refuses to let it stand as the final word. In the same place where they were told they were not God's people, they will be named children of the living God (1:10). Peter tells believers in Christ that this is their story too: people once outside God's family and outside his mercy have been brought into both (1 Peter 2:10). Whatever label your past has earned, God is able to give you a new name.

To think about: What old label do you still carry, and what would it mean to answer instead to the name God gives his people?