Category: Marriage

Loving the Unlovely: Brussel Sprouts, Ice Cream, Jesus, and Me. Hosea 3-4. 2026

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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 121, Hosea 3-4

If I asked a class of third grade students, “Raise your hand if you love ice cream.” I bet every hand would shoot up. 🙋🏿‍♀️🙋🏻🙋🏽‍♂️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🙋🏾‍♂️

But if I then said, “Raise your hand if you love Brussel sprouts,” I’m quite sure I’d get a very different response. Even if I followed it up with words like, “They are really good for you! They’re high in fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants.” Still, it’s a no. 🙅🏽‍♂️🙅🏼‍♀️🙅🏻🙅🏿‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️🙅

It is only logical to love ice cream. It’s sweet and creamy and delicious.🍦😋 But Brussel sprouts … They are more of an acquired taste, suited for a more refined palate. 🥬 😝

I’m afraid I think of myself as ice cream, naturally easy to love, rather than Brussel sprouts, good for you but a little bitter, stinky, and hard to digest.

When we read the book of Hosea, I’m afraid we tend to picture ourselves as the faithful prophet, when in reality we’re much more like the wandering prostitute. Please, sisters, don’t forget that we are Gomer, that woman who abandons her true love to pursue idols, and God is Hosea, the faithful One who again and again chases after His bride, pulling her out of the pig slop. 🥴🐖

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:10 ESV

Don’t forget 1 Corinthians 13.

Love covers a multitude of sins.

Love is not irritable or resentful or rude.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Love forgives.

Love never ends.

Love is steadfast and patient and faithful.

Praise God that He loved us while we were yet sinners, and now He calls us to go and do likewise.

Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your steadfast, patient, faithful love toward me. Thank You for pursuing me, though I didn’t deserve it, though I don’t deserve it still. I’m not worthy, but You are. You deserve better. You deserve chocolate, chocolate chip ice cream with whipped cream and sprinkles and a cherry on top. And yet You have demonstrated Your love by sending Your own Son to be the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice, the substitutionary offering, for my sin. Praise Your Name forevermore. Amen.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

Marriage is Exclusive, and So Is Our Relationship with God: Hosea 1-2

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Read through the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 120, Hosea 1-2

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.”

Hosea 1:2 ESV

How had the Israelites forsaken the Lord? Had they stopped making sacrifices and offerings? Had they stopped observing the feasts and Sabbaths?

No, they had forsaken Him by making Him one god on a buffet of gods. They had forsaken Him by worshipping both Him and Baal. They had forsaken Him by offering themselves to other lovers in addition to the Lord God.

Friends, we can have a dozen coworkers, a dozen children, and a dozen friends, but we can only have ONE husband and he can only have ONE bride.

A good husband refuses to share
his bride with other men,
and our good God refuses to share
His bride with other gods.

It is not enough for us to make God the biggest god in our life, or the most valuable idol that we have. He can’t be our “favorite” husband. He wants to be our ONLY husband. He wants ALL of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. He wants to be our everything. He is either Lord of all or He’s not Lord at all.

God despises adultery of all forms, especially adultery toward Him. God wants our whole heart. He is a jealous God. He will not share His glory with another.

  • Exodus 34:14 ESV — (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),
  • Deuteronomy 4:24 ESV — For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
  • Isaiah 42:8 ESV — I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

Heavenly Father, You are a good husband who loves His bride and refuses to share her with another. I pray that we would be a loving bride, rejecting all other things who vie for our attention. I pray that You would be the apple of our eye, the center of our attention, the singular focus of our lives. May we be found pure and faithful as You, O Lord, are pure and faithful to us. In the Name of Jesus Christ, our redeemer and bridegroom, Amen.

Find us Faithful – Steve Green

Love God? Love Others – 2 Chronicles 34-36 – 2026 Day 83

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 52, 2 Chronicles 34-36

“Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up to the house of the LORD, with all the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites, all the people both great and small. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood in his place and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book. Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin join in it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.

2 Chronicles 34:29-32 ESV

Love God? Love Others – 2 Chronicles 34-26 – FormerAtheist58
How Deep the Father’s Love for Us – JJ Heller

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Our Sins are Many but His Mercy is MORE – 2 Chronicles 33 – 2026 Day 82

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 50-51, 2 Chronicles 33

The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon.

And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God.

2 Chronicles 33:10-13 ESV

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Psalm 51:10-12 ESV

Our Sins are MANY – His Mercy is MORE – 2 Chronicles 33 – FormerAtheist58
Create in me a Clean Heart – Keith Green
His Mercy is More – T4G Live

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Relying on God and Working by HIS STRENGTH 💪🏋️‍♂️⚜️ 2 Chronicles 26-28 – 2026 Day 79

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: 2 Chronicles 26-28, Psalm 47

[King Uzziah] set himself to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God, and as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper. He went out and made war against the Philistines and broke through the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabneh and the wall of Ashdod, and he built cities in the territory of Ashdod and elsewhere among the Philistines…. In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.

2 Chronicles 26:5-6, 14 ESV

Relying on God and Working by HIS STRENGTH 💪🏋️‍♂️⚜️ 2 Chronicles 26-28 – FormerAtheist58
Selah – “Twila Paris Medley” – (Official Lyric Video)

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Assorted U.S. coins and crumpled dollar bills scattered on a rough asphalt ground

The Lord is able to ABUNDANTLY RESTORE More Than You’ve Squandered – 2 Chronicles 25 – 2026 Day 78

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: 2 Chronicles 25, Psalm 46

Please forgive the ridiculous AI graphic. Apparently, this is what AI thinks of as “people wasting their money,” but the point remains. God is able to ABUNDANTLY RESTORE more than you’ve squandered, even if it’s on $25 cups of coffee and $35 bags of truffle chips.

[King Amazia] hired also 100,000 mighty men of valor from Israel for 100 talents of silver.

But a man of God came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the LORD is not with Israel, with all these Ephraimites. But go, act, be strong for the battle. Why should you suppose that God will cast you down before the enemy? For God has power to help or to cast down.”

And Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall we do about the hundred talents that I have given to the army of Israel?”

The man of God answered, “The LORD is able to give you much more than this.”

2 Chronicles 25:6-9 ESV

The Lord is able to ABUNDANTLY RESTORE More Than you’ve Squandered – 2 Chronicles 25 – FormerAtheist58
If it had not been for the Lord – Keith & Kristyn Getty – video by Ridgeway Community Church

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Pray for your Pastors – 2 Chronicles 23-24 – 2026 Day 77

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: 2 Chronicles 23-24, Psalm 45

But Jehoiada grew old and full of days, and died. He was 130 years old at his death. And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, and toward God and his house.

Now after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. And they abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs.

Yet he sent prophets among them to bring them back to the LORD. These testified against them, but they would not pay attention.

Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has forsaken you.’”

But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the LORD. Thus Joash the king did not remember the kindness that Jehoiada, Zechariah’s father, had shown him, but killed his son. And when he was dying, he said, “May the LORD see and avenge!”

2 Chronicles 24:15-22 ESV

PRAY for your PASTORS! – FormerAtheist58
Speak O Lord – Keith & Kristyn Getty

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Being a Godly Wife, Mother, and Sister – 2 Chronicles 21-22 – 2026 Day 76

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 44, 2 Chronicles 21-22

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah.

But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were about to be put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom.

Thus Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death.

And he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of God, while Athaliah reigned over the land.

2 Chronicles 22:10-12 ESV

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Being a Godly Wife, Mother, & Sister – FormerAtheist58
Your Nature – Eli Gable

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Don’t Know What to Do? TURN to GOD – 2 Chronicles 19-20 – 2026 Day 75

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 43, 2 Chronicles 19-20

“We do not know what to do,
but our eyes are on you.”

2 Chronicles 20:12b
Don’t Know What to Do? Turn to God – FormerAtheist58
And Can it Be? – Grace Community Church

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I am His, And He is Mine – Song of Solomon 6-8 – 2026 Day 62-64

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Read the Bible in 2 Years: Psalm 30-32, Song of Solomon 6-8

I’m using David Guzik’s commentary to better understand the book of “Song of Solomon.” Read chapter 6 here or download the “Enduring Word Commentary” free from the Apple Store or the Google Store or read Mr. Guzik’s commentary in the Blue Letter Bible app, also available from the Apple Store or Google Store.

Additionally, he has sermons available for you to watch or listen to on his Enduring Word website, here.

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;

Song of Songs 6:3a ESV

I Am His, and He Is Mine
Author: Wade Robinson (1877)

Loved with everlasting love,
led by grace that love to know;
gracious Spirit from above,
Thou dost taught me it is so!
O this full and precious peace!
O this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease,
I am His and He is mine.
In a love which cannot cease,
I am His wife and He is mine.


Heav’n above is deeper blue;
earth around is sweeter green;
something lives in ev’ry hue
Christless eyes have never seen.
Birds with gladder songs o’erflow;
flow’rs with deeper beauties shine;
Since I know, as now I know,
I am His and He is mine.
Since I know, as now I know,
I am His and He is mine.


Taste the goodness of the Lord:
welcomed home to His embrace,
all His love, as blood outpoured,
seals the pardon of His grace.
Can I doubt His love for me,
when I trace that love’s design?
By the cross of Calvary
I am His and He is mine.
I am His and He is mine.


His forever, only his!
Who the Lord and me shall part?
Ah, with what a rest of bliss
Christ can fill the loving heart!
Heav’n and earth may fade and flee,
firstborn light in gloom decline;
But while God and I shall be,
I am His and He is mine.
I am His and He is mine.

I am His and He is Mine – Michael Lining

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