Text: Hosea 3:1-3
Memory text:
“We love Him because He first loved us.”
I John 4:19 NKJV
Agape love is loving the undeserving. Do you know that there was nothing useful and valuable in us when God initiated His love towards us? We were full of sin and carrying the stench of sin. I love the way the MSG puts it: “But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him”. (Rom 5:8). Did you notice that phrase? ‘…. while we were of no use whatever to him’. Romans 5:10 adds that we were enemies. Yet, in spite of our sin and enmity, God, of His own free will set His love on us! It is not the natural love but the divine love. Agape love is far beyond our natural ability to love. It takes God’s love to love an enemy and the invaluable! That is why no one can have this kind of love without being born again.
God’s sacrificial love made a treasure out of a wretch! Amazing grace! This is the message of prophet Hosea. God told Hosea to marry a harlot. Who will normally want to marry such? “… “Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the Lord.”” (Hos 1:2).
Is God teaching us to marry a whore or an unbeliever out of love? No, for God won’t break His word (2 Cor 6:14). God wanted Hosea to model God’s love for His adulterous people of Israel. The nation of Israel was committing spiritual adultery. Rather than giving themselves completely to the worship of God, they were giving themselves to other gods. They were undeserving, yet God initiated love to rescue them.
According to our text, God told Hosea to go after his adulterous wife where she was playing her Harlotry; while she was still in sin. Gomer does not deserve Hosea’s love, yet God tells him to go to her again. God’s love never gives up, but enduring. God’s love is forgiving. Like Corrie ten Boom said, “No pit is so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”
Just like Jesus redeemed us from our life of sin, Hosea went to buy Gomer back from the men she had given herself to and brought her back home (Hos 3:3).
Friends, whatever love you have for Jesus today shouldn’t lead you to boasting because He first loved you. Also, we are not Hosea but the adulterous Gomer. Thank God for His love for us. God showered such amazing love to you so you can extend it to others. Are you loving only the deserving?
Prayer points
1. Father, cause me to grow in true love, loving the undeserving, in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, please, help me to be more forgiving and never giving up on my offenders, in Jesus’ name.
Today’s declarations
1. I practice agape love by loving the unlovable and the undeserving.
2. I will never boast of my love for God because He first loved me and loved me more than I can ever attain.