Hey Gang,
Last week we started our lesson series on the book of Hosea. Our opening question was this - what's your definition of love? Many of you acknowledged the 3-types of love in the bible: Agape - meaning God's unconditional love, Eros - the sensual love we experience in marriage, and Phileo - the brotherly love we experience with others. The initial point of the lesson was that we tend to put these three expressions of love in separate boxes and God wants us to experience, understand and live-out an agape love in our marriages and in our relationships with others. One love expressed in three ways kind of like the Trinity.
1 John 4:16 says that, "God is love..." Marriage is ordained by God and illustrates His relationship with His people. There is no greater tragedy than the violation of these sacred vows. Hosea the prophet to Israel (Northern Kingdom) is commanded by God to marry an unfaithful woman (Gomer) in order to show Israel that they had committed spiritual adultery against the Lord and that their sin of idolatry was as painful to God as Gomer's unfaithfulness to Hosea.
In the movie Fireproof, Caleb is on the verge of divorce from his wife Catherine because he had loved other things when he should have been loving his wife. He doesn't understand the love he is suppose to have for Catherine until he comes to the cross of Jesus. His apology to Catherine is very telling in that this is the sin of Israel too - she loved other things beside God. Watch Caleb's apology below:
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Hosea demonstrated through his love for Gomer the kind of love God felt for Israel. This week we examine the loyalty that God expects of His people.
Moses said that God loved Israel because He loved her (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). God's love is totally of grace - that's what makes grace so amazing. God chose Israel in spite of what she was, not because of what she was. He knew her sin, her weakness, her bent to evil. God's love for Israel was not blind and neither was Hosea's love for Gomer. Israel's response to God's love should have been humble gratitude, devotion, and loving obedience. However, it didn't take long for Israel to reveal her latent idolatrous heart. Remember what Kirk Cameron said, "In marriage the heart of my problems is the problem of my heart."
Give a little thought this week about what it means to be loyal to God. The tribes of Israel were unfaithful toward God, so was restoration even possible? Hosea 6:1-3 give the indication that it was if they returned to the Lord - what did that mean?
Are there behaviors, public or private, that you need to repent of? Do you ever find yourself pushing convictions aside, as if the small sins are not that big of a deal? Or do you sometimes see yourself just going through the religious motions to deal with the sins in your life?
Our lesson this week is from Hosea 6:1 - 7:2 and it outlines the loyalty God expects from each of us that claim to follow Him.
See you on Sunday!
In His Love,
David & Susan
