Greatest of these - a relentless love
Sharable notes for the October 31, 2021 message. You can post these notes on your social platform!
Scriptures used: Hosea 1:2-3, 3:1-3, 5:13, 11:8; Ephesians 5:1-2; 2 Corinthians 2:14-15
We will often turn in other directions to fulfill our desires instead of turning to God, and the irony is the things we turn to for help, comfort and security often end up destroying our life.
“The affections of man cannot be idle; if they do not go out to God, they leak out to world things. When our love for God decreases, the love of the world grows in our soul.” Arthur Pink
God should be our ultimate source of joy, delight, confidence and trust. Other things have their place, but not the ultimate place.
Intimacy leads to conception. If we are concerned about what we are birthing in our life, we may need to look at what we are holding at intimate places in our life.
Don't let certain rights you may have keep you from loving others.
God does not want to give you up. He will not give up. His love is relentless. It is unfailing.
“The pursuing love of God is the greatest wonder in the spiritual universe. When we see this love at work through the heart of Hosea we may wonder if God is really like that. But he is. Think about it: Many years later he would give man the ability to form the iron in the ground he had given him into nails, and to fashion the trees in the field he had created into a cross... Then he stretched outhis hands upon that tree and allowed us to nail him there, and in so doing he took our sins upon himself. This is our God, and there is no one else like him.” Donald Barnhouse
There are only two ways to respond to God's love. Either reject him and walk away or completely give yourself over to Him and live passionately for Him. We cannot patronize God with a half-hearted commitment.
God’s relentless love will go again and again to redeem you and it wants to go again and again through you to others.
Reflect or meet with someone to discuss:
How would you feel if you were Hosea and were called to marry a prostitute? What does this story speak to you?
Do you see yourself allowing your affections to go more towards other things than to God? Think back to the questions proposed during the message - What are we turning to for comfort? What are we turning to when we are worried or stressed out? Where do look you for financial security? What are you proselytizing? What platform are you standing on? What or who are you expressing your faith and trust in? Is God and your faith the answer to those questions or is something else?
What does it mean to you to know that God's love comes after you again and again? How should your respond to that love?
Click the image to start a new 5 day devotion in YouVersion:
Francine Rivers’s novel Redeeming Love draws on themes from the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer to remind us of God’s passionate, sacrificial, and unchanging love. In this 5-day devotional, Rivers takes us deep into Scripture as together we explore that incredible love and consider how God longs to redeem the pain of our past as we draw closer to Him.