Spiritual Adultery

So, after I wrote my first blog, Fan The Flame: Don't Let Your Fire Be Extinguished (please check it out if you haven't already), it was laid on my heart to read the book of Hosea. I was obedient and read two chapters a day. The book of Hosea is all about God's love (If you haven't read the book of Hosea, it’s really amazing!). The book parallels Hosea's relationship with his wife, Gomer to God's relationship with the nation of Israel. 

In the first chapter of Hosea, God instructs Hosea to do something that most would deem ridiculous and a little crazy. He commands him to go marry a prostitute...

         

Hosea 1:2 "When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said, 'Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshipping other gods.'"

So I'm reading this like Whoa!?! God really just told His prophet to go marry a prostitute!!! I had heard the story, but there's something different about reading it yourself. I continue to read the book and the story unfolds...Hosea is obedient to God and marries Gomer. They have three children, though there is uncertainty as to whether or not they are all his children because Gomer was an adulterous woman. Even though she was adulterous, Hosea loved her and the children just the same.

Let me go into a little more detail and focus on Gomer...The first three chapters depict Gomer as this woman who has this amazing husband that has this unfailing, unconditional love for her, despite the fact that she cheats on him and keeps running away from him to be with other men or lovers and then proceeding to come back to him and then run away again (she only comes back to him out of desparation, when she feels she is better off with him). Gomer's husband, Hosea takes her back repeatedly and loves her as if nothing ever happened. At one point, in chapter 3, Hosea has to buy back Gomer from the prostitution she has gotten caught up in. He buys her back for 15 pieces of silver, 5 bushels of barley, and a measure of wine (Hosea 3:2) And then Hosea and Gomer's relationship is paralleled and compared to the way Israel is treating God. Just like Gomer turned to other lovers, Israel was turning to other gods and giving them attention, gratitude, and worship that solely belonged to God. And just as Gomer kept running away from Hosea and then coming back because she figured she would be better off with him (Hosea 2:7), the Israelites ran from God and then would return out of desperation (Sidenote: Make sure you don't just come to God out of desperation, when you've already gone to everybody else. God should always be you top choice, not your backup plan to your backup plan! And don't just come to Him out of desperation, come to Him because you love Him!).

As I’m reading all of this, I’m sitting there thinking Gomer and the Israelites were trifling!!! Gomer has this amazing husband in Hosea that loves her despite everything she’s done, all of her shortcomings, he loves her through it all. His love for her is unconditional and unfailing, that I Corinthians 13:4-7 type of love, and she treats him terribly. She doesn’t appreciate him, she keeps leaving him, and comes back only out of desperation. And the same is true of Israel. Here the Israelites have God who has always been there and delivered them from countless situations and yet they treat God like dirt. They gave thanks and praise to other gods for what God had done and gave themselves over to other gods completely, and in the process forgetting and ignoring God and only remembering Him when they found themselves in a desperate situation. I’m reading and it’s literally as if they’ve forgotten that God has been their constant, their provider, their protector, their deliverer, their shelter, their healer, their way maker…I could go on and on…God had been everything to them and they seemed to have forgotten. So, I’m looking at the way Gomer and the Israelites acted and just shaking my head. And then a voice whispers to me you’ve been Gomer, you’ve had the mentality that Gomer and the Israelites had. How many times have you ignored me and forgot about me and gave other people and things the attention that belonged to me?!? How many times have you treated things and people as if they were a god?!? #convictedmuch #idolcheck #TheresOnly1God  Its amazing how God can show you yourself through different people in the bible. At first glance I’m like they are so triflin, but then its like Mariah, you’re triflin too because you’ve acted just like them!!! There’s always something you can glean and take away from people in the bible, God will show you yourself in those individuals.  But anyways, just as Gomer had committed adultery and Israel had committed spiritual adultery, I too was guilty of spiritual adultery.

What is adultery? Adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse. The thing that sticks in my mind about adultery is that the person committing the act belongs to someone else, they made promises and vows to someone else. I’m learning more and more that this walk with God really is like a marriage. As Christians, we are married (in a committed relationship) to God, we belong to Him. When we commit spiritual adultery or idolatry we give ourselves over to someone or something other that God. In other words spiritual adultery is when we have a lover or a mistress. Basically you are being unfaithful to God, having someone or something on the side. We’ve got to learn that we can’t be in a relationship with/married to God and flirt with the world (the world is your boyfriend) #cantdothat!!! That’s spiritual adultery!

When most couples get married they express vows to one another. For example, here are some traditional vows:

         

“I ______, take thee, ______, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, til death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my faith/myself to you.”

Most couples promise to remain faithful to each other, forsaking all others for one another until death. It hit me a while back that the bible is filled with God’s vows and promises to us. One of my favorite is Hebrews 13:5, “…Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” God is so faithful to us. He is always there, but we can be unfaithful to Him sometimes. Its hard sometimes to grasp faithfulness and what it means in your relationship with God when the world bombards us with: (1)how no body stays together anymore. Marriage isn’t seen as sacred anymore, people take it too lightly, (2) how marriage is portrayed in the media, no one is faithful anymore. There are television shows centered around adultery. My favorite show used to be Scandal, and a huge part of the show was the main character, Olivia Pope’s, adulterous relationship with the married president of the United States. And I was so sucked into that show I found myself rooting for this man to be unfaithful to his wife?!? (Now, I’m not judging you if you watch Scandal, that was one of my personal convictions and I don’t watch that show anymore.) Another show I saw a commercial for that’s supposed to be coming on is Mistresses and I’m just like really though, a show centered around mistresses?!? Where are the shows celebrating marriage and how beautiful it is?!? The shows that depict couples, though not perfect, that are in it for the long haul and faithful to each other. It seems as if the world is preaching unfaithfulness, that its ok to have a lover or a sidechick, but that’s not the case! Faithfulness is what God is to us and what he desires and requires from us in return. This relationship, this marriage to God takes two. God will always to His part. We have to do ours as well. When we get saved and begin our relationship with God it shouldn’t have been something that we took likely. Commit to being in this relationship, this walk with God for the duration, put into practice faithfulness to God because you want to hear Him say, “Well done, thy good and faithful servant.” But also remember that nobody is perfect. We will all slip up and fall into spiritual adultery at some point, but recognize it when it happens, repent and turn away from it. Do heart checks and life checks making sure that God is your #1 and that you haven’t given yourself over to anyone or anything, thus creating an idol. Remember who you belong to. You belong to God. And even in those moments when you are unfaithful to Him, when you commit spiritual adultery, He still loves you like crazy and is waiting for you to come back to Him. That was what I ultimately took away from the book of Hosea, how much God loves me. His love for you is so intense, unfailing, unconditional, all-consuming, etc. He loves you through everything. I pray you know how much God loves you!!!

I hope this blesses you! I love you bunches!

Mariah 

Here's some music for ya'll. These songs bless me and wreck me.