Episode #143 When Your Love For God Falters … Let God Catch You – God’s Love for You is Steadfast

Hi friends. Today we are wrapping up our series on God's steadfast love, and we're talking about the steadfast love that we get to offer to him. And I think for most of us, that idea either sounds too simple or too impossible.

It can feel too simple. Of course I love God. I know him. He knows me. It's easy to offer him my love.

And also it can feel impossible. It can feel like it's too big of a goal to love God steadfastly. He is loyal and faithful.

There's never a time that he is not acting toward us in love. But as humans, we are fickle. We do fail. Our sin gets in the way. We have competing desires and competing interests. And so the idea of offering God steadfast love can feel impossible.

No matter which group you're in, this episode is for you.

And we're going to be looking at some verses in the book of Hosea.

Now Hosea is a complex book of the Bible.

It talks about the punishment that God's people face because they are unfaithful, because they are unloyal to him and they keep going after false gods and living lives apart from him. And about God's persevering, pursuant, steadfast love for them.

Hosea was a person, a minor prophet who God told to go marry an unfaithful woman as an illustration of what was happening with his people. Hosea and his wife have children, and first they have a son named Jezreel. And God says to name him that because he's going to punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel.

And then they have a daughter and God says to name her “No Mercy.” And then they have a son and God says to call his name “Not My People.” So those don't sound like names that I would want for my children, but Hosea walks in what God tells him to do.

And then the chapters continue to talk about the punishment for Israel's unfaithfulness—and then the Lord's mercy on Israel. And how Hosea is instructed to redeem his wife, even though she is unfaithful.

The chapters continue as the Lord accuses Israel for not being faithful and not having a steadfast love and not knowing the Lord. But they are unrepentant. And even as they are being judged, God speaks of his love for them, and the Book of Hosea ends with a plea to return to the Lord.

But there's a few verses that I want to highlight for us, kind of towards the end of Hosea chapter two, God is talking about his mercy, his steadfast love that he wants to show to Israel, even though the nation of Israel has been unfaithful to him. And starting in verse 14, it says,

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.” (Hosea 2:14)
And he talks about how he will make a covenant on that day.

And in verse 19,

“And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.” (Hosea 2:19)

And then skipping down to verse 23,

“And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’” (Hosea 2:23)

There's encouragement for us here, even in the times when we feel like we are not steadfast in our love for the Lord, that God's love pursues us.

God longs to draw us close to himself, he longs to restore us into that relationship.

And then our final verses for today come from Hosea chapter six and it's verses three and six. It says,

“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth.” (Hosea 6:3)

And then God talks. And he says,

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (Hosea 6:6)

We've been going through this series talking about God's steadfast love toward us. And one of the ways, maybe even the strongest way that I know to grow in steadfast love toward God is by receiving more of his steadfast love for me. Because God is love. Love comes from God, and I can't work up love on my own.

But we get to receive God's love for us. And then as we receive it, we get to give it back to him.

God's love isn't just something we receive. It's something we receive, and then we get to act in accordance with. We get to put his love into action in our lives. And he tells us, I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice, knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

And I think there's a clue here to natural human tendencies, to look for ways to give God the thing he's wanted quickly. Oh yes. Let me give him a burnt offering. Let me go sacrifice for him in some way. But what he's beckoning us into is relationship. He's saying, I want you to know me. I want you to come to me with steadfast love. I want you to be loyal in your love for me.

In Episode 142, we looked at how God described himself to Moses and that God wanted to show Moses that he was steadfast in love. God so values mercy and loyal love that he desires for us to give that to him too. And so whether that feels difficult or easy for you today, we're going to go talk with God about that.

We're going to ask God to help us be steadfast in the way that we love him. And so here's our question:

God, I want to be steadfast in my love for you. What's one way I can grow in this?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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