Humans are prone to desire. It is a God-given thing. There isn’t anything wrong with desire; it’s the object we desire that should be in question. For instance, it is more than right to desire God. Desire in a wrong sense can be diluted to this simple phrase: ‘Got to have it.’ We can desire the right things the right way. We can also desire the right things the wrong way. And of course we can desire the wrong things, which is always in the wrong way. Augustine said it this way in “Confessions of Saint Augustine”: ‘Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.’
This God given thing is given to us, well, by God. It’s from Him. He desires also. The question is: What does God desire? The answer is found everywhere in the scripture. It outlines Him… His revelation of Himself to us. We know what He desires and what He despises. Man can really get this wrong, I mean real bad! Think of the Pharisees, how they did not discern God’s will from God’s word, at all. In the book of Hosea we find a clear, determinate answer to What does God desire: Hosea 6.6– “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Two points: 1. Mercy and not sacrifice. 2. The knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
God’s desire is for you to desire Him. Looking just at Hosea 6.6 alone, we see that God wants you to: know Him (point 2); and therefore act like Him (point 1). He also pointed out where we get off track: Instead we focused on the logistics (sacrifices and offerings) and forgot why. This is religion. This is modern churchanity. It is christian in name only.
This dynamic works the other way around as well. When a person is more focused on logistics, they will forget why they are doing it in the first place, forfeiting God’s desire for their own life. The logistics become an end to themselves. In so doing, the desire for God fades into oblivion. It becomes a desire to keep up appearances and procedures, rather than a direct desire for God.
Israel sacrificed and made burnt offerings for a couple of millennia, not even knowing why anymore. They simply went through the motions. Eventually they even set up a man-made class of self-imposed leaders that legislated the logistics (Pharisees and Sadducees). In Hosea 4.6 we find all of this fornication and adultery is due to a lack of understanding who God is. A lack of knowledge. Because of the lack of truth in knowledge, they have rejected God. This is described earlier when the diagnosis is given in 2.6-9. There we find when Judah will come to her senses and realize just how good God has been. Just how good she had it, much like believers today.
This is a direct representation of our own spiritual adultery against God. We cheat on God (run around) with the world. There is a word, a very difficult word used in the text: “whoredoms”. The difference between from adultery is that this gets payment for these actions. Yes, you read that right. This means they were prostitutes against God. They weren’t just running around, they were also doing that. The payment, in the case of our text, are gifts of pleasure like seed and coverings. Today the same happens when we seek, with our heart, this world and it’s goods. We receive in payment, pleasures for it. Payment comes in many forms, such as: popularity, bigger houses, more things, better stuff, and so on. These distractions are payment for our cheating.
Judah wakes up in the end and discovers who her true lover is. Will we? In this passage (2.6-9) we see God setting up a “hedge”. A hedge of thorns that she cannot penetrate. She is forced to go in a certain direction. Which direction? And what ‘wall’? The direction is back to God. The wall is frustrated expectations. She wants her lovers, but can’t find them. She wants them, but can’t have them (“overtake”). This causes her to rethink their position and return. Meanwhile God has prepared her a “covering” when she comes back and a meal is set. Can you believe it? That God would keep taking them back? Working all-along to direct their (our) way back to God.
Many believers today set out to ‘have their way’ with the world intentionally or unintentionally. God then frustrates their path and makes it difficult. Some do as Judah, by returning to their senses and return back to God. Some other do as Israel (Ephriam) and stubbornly put the brakes on (4.15-19). They instantly keep blaming God for their frustrations. Truth is: God is to be blamed, but not because you’re frustrated. He is to be blamed for the hedge of Love He has placed to bring you back. Maybe instead of pushing back when someone says ‘don’t love the world’, it would be more beneficial to say ‘thank you’ to God for warning you.
How did it get this way? They have a lack of knowledge of who God really is. They ran off to the world for pleasure and self. They forgot God, what He thinks, cares about, and does. They justified themselves and were caught up in lust. Sound familiar? Yes. The question is: will we be a Judah and come back to Him? Or will we be an Israel and stubbornly blame Him for taking away our lover (the world)?
He desires that you desire Him.