Connect to Us: Read Hosea 11:1-11
In much of the book of Hosea, God appears to be extremely angry with the people of Israel. God appears to be an angry Father who is ready to open up a can of whooping on his children. Take a look at the following
sub-headings from my bible: Chapter 2: Israel Punished and Restored, Chapter 4: The Charge Against Israel, Chapter 5: Judgment Against Israel, Chapters 6&7: Israel Unrepentant, Chapter 8: Israel to Reap the Whirlwind, Chapters 9 &
10: Punishment for Israel, Chapter 11: God’s Love for Israel, Chapter 12 Israel’s Sin, Chapter 13: The Lord’s Anger Against Israel, and Chapter 14: Repentance to Bring Blessing.  If you were to simply thumb through the pages of this prophetic text, you might come to the same conclusion as the great awakening preacher Jonathan Edwards
famously who preached “We are Sinners at the Hands of an Angry God.”  While I agree that God does get angry, I contend that anger is not the essence of who God is. 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. Love is the essence of who God is, not anger.  Many of us have embedded theologies or ways of thinking about God that come from our own experiences with our family of origin, culture, and religious background.  While the Old Testament is filled with plenty of examples of God’s wrath, it is also filled with acts of grace/love.  For example, shortly after Adam and Eve sin in Genesis Chapter 3, they hide their nakedness by covering their bodies with fig legs. Can you say OUCH!!!  Who wants to wear fig leaf underwear, it is guaranteed to chaff and irritate.  In an act of grace God makes comfortable clothes for them from animal skin.  God also evicts them from the Garden. You see God is both just and loving. While some of the chapters in Hosea focus on the anger of God and the punishment of Israel, chapters 3, 11, and 14 focus on the love of God for God’s people. 

Scripture in Context
In the first chapter, Hosea was told by the Most High God to marry an adulterous woman and have children of unfaithfulness.  Hosea was obedient to God and he married Gomer as a prophetic symbolic
action. This prophetic symbolic action paints a clear picture of nature of the relationship that the Triune God had with Israel. God had been a faithful husband and father to Israel but Israel had been unfaithful to God. 
In chapter two Hosea threatens to strip his wife naked, expose her in the day, and kill her with thirst.  Once again, the point is to make the audience understand how God feels through the prophetic symbolic action of Hosea. This in no way justifies the abuse of women. In chapter 3, God tells Hosea to reconcile with his wife, even though she had done nothing to deserve reconciliation. Hosea did as God commanded. This prophetic symbolic act demonstrates how God extends grace to the people of Israel.  Even though the people did not deserve reconciliation, God would reconcile with them.
In Chapter 11, Israel/Ephraim is personified as a child, and we see the true essence of God has a loving father. God talks about Israel just as a parent would who has been heart broken by a wayward child. God reminisces about
the good times that they enjoyed together up until Israel learned to walk. The point here is that Israel learned to walk, and then walked away from God. Even though Israel walks away from God, God pursues Israel. While God is angry, God’s love is greater than God’s anger. The God who is love pursues Israel. God then decides that he will make Israel a great nation again if they repent from their sins. So what were their sins? Their sins were idolatry, failure to care for the most vulnerable members of their society, and unholy alliances with foreign governments. Therefore, God wanted them to give up their worship of idol gods, care for the least, the last, and the lost, and give up their dependence on foreign military power and foreign trade.
 
Connect Heads:
What is the grace of God?

How does God pursue us?

Connect Hearts:
Share a time with the group when you turned your back on God but
God pursued you.

Share a time when other people turned their backs on you, but God
remained faithful to you.

Connect Hands:
Write down things that may be idols in your life?

Connection Challenge:

Make a sacrificial offering to the Lord this month. 
Read Romans 12:9-13
Pray each day
Devote 15 minutes to silent meditation




 

Connect to Us: Read 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
This Week’s Connection Topic: Giving
I will give 10% of my financial resources for the growth of God’s kingdom . Malachi 3:24, Luke 3:12-14.
Purpose: To encourage us to give extravagantly
Human need: Giving helps us become what God wants us to be.

In today’s text, Paul is encouraging Corinthians to be generous. Paul quotes the example of the Macedonians in 2 Corinthians 8:1-5 as a means of encouraging the Corinthians to practice generosity. At the same time, he is encouraging the Macedonians to practice generosity by quoting the Corinthians.  It seems as though Paul was trying to capitalize upon the competitive giving spirit among the churches. So what was Paul’s purpose? Paul is trying to raise money for the Christian church at Jerusalem. One could argue that Paul was trying to get Corinthian and Macedonian churches to pay their apportionments to support the mission of the church in Jerusalem. The church at Jerusalem was poor in comparison to the wealth of the churches in Corinth and Macedonia.

In 2 Corinthians 9, our key text, Paul has grown concerned that the Corinthians may let him down. The purpose of this part of the letter to the church is to encourage the Corinthians to give generously, so that the Macedonians will continue to do likewise. The purpose of this Morningside Letter is to encourage you to give generously.

Ways that We Give
The great theologian, William Barclay, said that there are least four ways that in which people may give their gifts. These four are duty, self-satisfaction, prestige, and love’s compulsion.  While duty, self-satisfaction, and prestige are not wholly bad reasons for giving, love’s compulsion should be our primary reason for giving. Therefore, giving the way God intends for us to give is not primarily a matter of how much one has in his or her pocket book, but it is a matter of the depth of God’s love in one’s heart.  It is from deep well of love in our hearts that we are able to give extravagant.

What is Extravagant Generosity
So what does it mean to give extravagantly? United Methodist Bishop and author of Five Practice of Fruitful Living, Robert Schnase says, “Extravagant does not correspond with giving that is merely dutiful, required, burdensome, mandated, or simply doing one’s part. Extravagant denotes a style and attitude of giving that is unexpectedly joyous, without predetermined limits, from the heart, extraordinary, over-the-top, and propelled by great passion. Extravagant Generosity is giving to God as God has given to us.”
Connect Heads:
What does it mean to give extravagantly?

Connect Hearts:
Search your own heart. Why do you give? Duty? Self-satisfaction? Prestige? Love’s compulsion?

Have you ever received extravagant generosity from someone else? How did you feel?

Connect Hands:
 Write down things that we can do to help us become more generous?

Connection Challenge:

Make a sacrificial offering to the Lord this month.

Read Genesis 3:1-13

Pray each day

Devote 15 minutes to silent meditation.