“She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold- which they used for Baal….She decked herself with rings and jewelry and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD.
Hosea 2:8, 13b
Dear Believer,
How many times have you looked back on your life and seen all the blessings of God? Have seen His goodness in the details of your life? Have enjoyed His bountiful gifts and forgotten to thank Him? Or not realize that all of those things were given to you out of the loving provision of God? As I have looked back at my life before I committed my life to Christ, although I have experienced hardships, pain, and consequences, I have also been able to see His merciful hand protecting me, guiding me, and loving me. A sinner unworthy of His love. Yet, we know that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us, the ungodly1. So before we understood who this goodness came from, He still gave us goodness. Before we knew Him as a provider, He provided. Before we sang the mercies of God, He was merciful. Before we loved Him, He loved us2.
The book of Hosea gives us a beautiful picture of a one-sided relationship. Hosea is called by God to marry an unfaithful woman. “Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom.” God tells Hosea to knowingly choose someone who has a habitual promiscuous lifestyle. What’s more, he is to have children with her. He is to choose her, he is to love her, and he is to sanctify her.
Why would God make such an unreasonable request?
Why would God tell his prophet to choose such a hard, sacrificial life?
How is this beautiful?
It’s beautiful not because the bride and the groom loved each other equally, but because although one was unworthy and unfaithful, the other loved beyond human understanding. It’s beautiful because the faithful loved the faithless. And through the pursuing and the loving, the unfaithful bride was brought to understand pure love. God can make this hard, unreasonable, and sacrificial request from Hosea because He wouldn’t ask of us what He hasn’t already done for him, and us.
As with everything, God had a purpose. The relationship Hosea was to have was to be a flesh and blood, object lesson for Israel, the people of God. “For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD.” Other versions use promiscuity, prostitution, harlotry, and infidelity in place of whoredom. But all are describing the other side of the relationship when there is unfaithful, abandoning of God.
We too, like Israel, have been in a similar relationship with the God of the universe. We have been unfaithful, we have gone after other loves, we have forgotten or even not even considered, God. Yet, we, the unworthy bride, have been chosen, loved, and are being sanctified. There was a time when we used God’s blessings on our idols. We used His gifts in unhealthy ways to satisfy our flesh. Still, because He has chosen us before the foundation of the earth, we belong to Him. He continued to love us because of His covenantal promise. And it was this faithful love that brought us to repentance. Our eyes have been opened to the extravagant beauty of God’s love.
This love, this amazing, underserved, rich, enduring, loyal, protective, perfect love can be found in no one else. He wanted His people to see in Hosea’s marriage, how our heavenly husband loves. How He speaks comfort to us, how we are betrothed to Him forever in faithfulness.
He will heal our backsliding and love us freely. It is this love of the Father, that sent His only Son to die for our harlotry. It is this love that paid the price of death that brings us life. It is this love that forgives the deepest shame and guilt. It is this love that says, “You are free”. It is this love that says, “You are mine and I love you forever”. It is with this love that we can in turn love Him and others. This is why the apostle Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus,
Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3: 17b-19
The knowledge and understanding of this love, the love of the Father, the love of Christ, and what He has done for us, is transformative. It brings the coldest sinner to his knees. The hardest heart to soften. It makes the repentant ones say,
My heart is steadfast, O God!
I will sing and make melody with all my being!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn!
I will give thanks to you, O LORD,
Among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For Your steadfast love is great among the heavens;
Your faithfulness reaches the clouds. Ps. 1081-4
So, if you are His child, praise and thank Him every day for His love. Live a life worthy of His faithfulness. If you have yet not come to the knowledge of His love, waste not another day. Call upon the name of the Lord, and you will be saved. Only then will God open your spiritual eyes of understanding and will continue until He brings you home.
The love of Christ- Wide enough to include every human being Long enough to last all eternity Deep enough to reach the most guilty sinner High enough to take us heaven
