“And the Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’ So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.”
– Hosea 3:1–2
What a picture? God tells Hosea, “Go down to the auction block where this woman, Gomer, would be sold as an adulterous.” And God says, “I want you to pay the price for her. Despite the fact that she has run off toward others instead of you, I want you to pay the price to bring her back to you.”
I trust, even as I say that, that you and I who know the story of the New Testament, who know the gospel, realize this is a powerful picture of what God has done for you and for me. We who have run after God’s and idols in this world, we who have rebelled against God in our sinfulness, God comes to us and quite literally pays the price for our sin. Jesus is the ransom, the redeemer, the one who pays the price for our sin. Not just a certain amount of money, not 15 shackles of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley, but he gives his life. He dies on a cross so that you and I could be restored to a relationship with God.
Would you just let this reality soak in in a fresh way today. Jesus has paid the price for you. Jesus loves you so much. Jesus died on a cross for you. Let that soak in and let it lead you to fresh worship today, to fresh thanksgiving today, to fresh realization today that you are valued by God, that you have been pursued by God, that you are worthy in God’s eyes of the sacrifice of his son.
Oh God, we praise you for your love for us. Jesus, we praise you for paying the price for our sin. God, we thank you that though we deserve to be cast off forever from your presence, we have been redeemed and ransomed, rescued by your love, by your pursuing gracious, merciful love for us. God, we praise you for your love for us. Jesus, we glorify you for your love for us on the cross and not just us. God, we think about Revelation chapter 5 that reminds us that Jesus has paid this ransom price to rescue men and women from every tribe and people and language and nation, and we want them all to know your love. We want them all to know your rescue, your ransom. So God, we pray for the spread of this good news among all the peoples, nations, tribes, and languages of the world.
We pray today specifically for the Tunni people of Somalia. God, this Muslim people group where there are no known Tunni believers. We know you love them. We know that Jesus died to ransom Tunni men and women and children for himself to restore them to you. So God, we pray for the spread of the gospel to the Tunni of Somalia. God, we pray throughout Somalia for open doors for the spread of the gospel, for our brothers and sisters, the few of them who are there, that you would give them courage and boldness and wisdom to know how best to share the gospel. God, that you would send more laborers into the harvest field of Somalia, that the Tunni people and others in Somalia might be ransomed and rescued by your love just like this picture in Hosea 3 shows.
God, even as I pray that and think about what you were calling Hosea as a prophet to do, God, we pray that you would help us to faithfully give our lives in whatever way you call us, to make your love known, to make your ransom known among people right around us and among nations and people groups far from us. God, we praise you for loving us like this, for loving the nations like this. We pray that you would receive the glory that you deserve in our lives and in the lives of people from every nation, tribe, and tongue, for the rescuer that you are. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
