God's Relentless Love

The relentless love of God is overwhelming to me. The relentless love of God is also intimidating to me.

1 John 4:8 and 16 both say that God is love. Those verses don’t say that God is a God of love. They say God is love. He is the very essence of love. He is love as love really is.

We know based on those verses He is love.

John 3:16 says that God loves the world, the people, so much that He sent Jesus, and through faith in Jesus we have eternal life.

We know based on this verse that God’s love caused Him to give the most precious gift He could give - His Son.

But it is in the Old Testament book of Hosea that we see the relentlessness of God’s love for us.

In Hosea 1:2 God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute.

It would have been interesting to seen Hosea explain to his parents why He was marrying a prostitute. Love to have heard that conversation.

Hosea obeys God and marries Gomer. (Every time I read this passage I have visions of Hosea marrying Gomer Pyle.)

So we ask why would God tell a godly man like Hosea to marry a prostitute?

In Hosea 1:2 God says it is to show that His people are committing spiritual prostitution because they are worshiping other gods.

Gomer and Hosea have three children.
The first is Jezreel. That name means God scatters.
The second is Lo-ruhamah. That name means not loved.
The third is Lo-ammi. That name means not my people.

Each of these names reflects the strain in the relationship of God and His people.

Gomer then leaves Hosea and goes back to her old life of prostitution.

In Hosea chapter 3 God tells Hosea to go find Gomer and take her back as his wife. When Hosea find her she is being sold as a slave and Hosea buys her for fifteen pieces of silver and ten bushels of barley. This was an exorbitant price.

God also renames the children from “not loved” to “love” and from “not my people” to “you are my people.”

The relentlessness of God’s love is shown in:
Hosea’ s love for Gomer in the first place.
Hosea’s buying Gomer back after she had betrayed and abandoned him.

The renaming of the children showing that a people who were not loved and who weren’t God’s people were now loved by God and were reclaimed by Him.

You and I are Gomer. We are the ones that God created and loved who betrayed and abandoned Him. The names of the children show how we related to God. We didn’t want His love or to be His people.

Hosea represents God:
The One who loves us.
The One who bought us with an exorbitant price
The One who pours out His love on us.
The One who wants us as His people.

There is another part to this whole event that we many times overlook.

In Hosea 3:3 Hosea says to Gomer after he has bought her out of slavery, “You must dwell as mine for many days. You shall not play the whore, or belong to another man; so will I also be to you.”

Hosea tells her that because of the great price he paid, out of his love for her, she has to be with him and no one else.

Three aspects of God’s love in Hosea 1-3.

First, God’s love is forgiving.

God’s desire is to forgive. It is not to punish or condemn or destroy.

1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

God sent Jesus to die for your sin so that He could offer you forgiveness. God wants to forgive and He is waiting to forgive.

Second, God’s love is merciful.

Mercy is not giving someone what they deserve.

Gomer deserved for Hosea to leave her to the consequences of her actions. He was directed by God to rescue her from slavery. She did not deserve that.

In the same way God has saved us from what our actions deserve by sending Jesus to take our punishment. Jesus died in our place on the cross.

1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the spirit.

Third, God’s love is gracious.

Grace is being given more than you deserve.

Ephesians 1:7-8
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight.

God didn’t just do the minimum. He lavished the riches of salvation on us along with great wisdom and insight.

He didn’t just save us from hell. He saved us to be in heaven.

That is the overwhelming part.

The intimidating part is that God commands me to love in that same way.

Mark 12:30-31
And you shall love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I am to love God with all that I am.
I am to love other people in the same way I love myself.

It is great to know that God’s love is forgiving, merciful, and gracious. But my love is also to be forgiving, merciful, and gracious.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about accepting and receiving God’s love.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about living daily in God’s love.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about giving God’s love to others.
Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about loving just like Jesus loves.

How can we do that?

Romans 5:5
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

God has poured into us by the Holy Spirit His same relentless love.

Am I capable of loving like Jesus? - No!

I am not a capable in my own natural resources. But God has poured into me His supernatural resources so that it is not me loving; it is actually God loving through me.

God gives us a command in Ephesians 4:32. He says, “Be kind to one another, tendered hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

God says love, forgive and show mercy and give grace, just as He does to me. The Holy Spirit will fill you and love through you. We have to surrender to allow God to do that.

With God’s Love Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe