“The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear,
Memory of the Month: Psalm 33:4
4 For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
Today's reading: HOSEA 1-4 REVELATION 1
Obedience
Obeying God is sometimes not easy. Take the Old Testament prophet Hosea, the first recorded 'minor prophet'. (I know why the scholars call them minor but the fact they are recorded for all time in Holy Scripture makes them, to me, rather major.) God told Hosea to take a wife.(The scholars also say that 'evidently' Hosea was from the upper class in his society.)
OK. A wife is a good thing, right? But God told Hosea to take a prostitute for a wife. Really? Yes. Hosea married a prostitute named 'Homer'. She bore him three children but she kept running to other lovers. But God would not let Hosea leave her. Hosea was obedient and stayed with her.
God used Hosea to illustrate His own love for His people. No matter how unfaithful the people were, God kept bringing them back and promising them a great future.
Our God is faithful. No matter what we do, God remains faithful. He lets us keep returning to our sin and He keeps forgiving us when we return to Him. He pursues us. He does not let us go. His love for us is unfailing-God's love never stops, never gets weak, never fails. His love endures all things.
Psalm 136:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.( Psalm 136 says His love endures forever another 25 times.)
But what does this mean?
1 Corinthians 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
'Bears all things' means that God is patient with us through all the junk we drag Him through. This means He is also patient with us as we learn and seek Him. He sees us learn a little at a time. His great love for us will not allow Him to dump all of His ultimate wisdom on us at once-we could not take it-we would never be strong enough to live in it. He watches us patiently as we go through every trial, every failure and keeps forgiving and strengthening us.
'Believes all things' means God believes in us-amazing! God believes in His creation enough to never give up on us but to keep sustaining us from trial to trial-sin to sin-confession to confession-until He sees us realize each small victory from glory to glory that He believes and knows is coming.
'Hopes all things'-now what can that mean? God expects us to return to Him after He expects that we will fail and confess because He is the one who created us with this nature and knows us infinitely.
'Endures all things'-yes, God's flawless love endures all things-all of our 'things'. God's love perseveres all our weaknesses as we return to Him from the smallest to the greatest of failures. His heart sinks with pain as we stumble and fall. He feels every scraped knee of the child learning how to walk. He grieves with every 'back-turn' of ours and rejoices with every return as the 'father when he saw the prodigal' coming down the road to return home.
The illustration of Hosea was to show the worst of sins against a husband and the deepest of love a husband can have in pursuit and forgiveness of a loved one. The worst we can do is forgiven by the greatest of loves-God's own love for us.
Does this touch you? Let it sink in. rary about this today, in other words, talk about this with God through the day and night. Thank Him for His great, inexhaustible love for you and His endless forgiveness and patience.
What a mighty and loving God we serve!
...because He loves us...
Father in Heaven,
Forgive me for taking Your love so lightly. Teach me to grasp it. Yours is the glory forever.
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