We usually think of love as two people with mutual feelings for each other. As humans that's how we identify with love, though God's love is much different. He loves us regardless of the love we show back to him. This unreciprocated love is clearly demonstrated in the book of Hosea.
God asked Hosea to marry a prostitute, so that some of her children would be conceived in prostitution. This would illustrate how Israel had acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshipping other gods. God wanted Hosea to love Gomer even though she had been unfaithful to him. He was showing through Hosea how he never stops loving us even when we don't reciprocate that love. She chased after other men and what they could give to her. After continually chasing and realizing that her lovers were nowhere to be found, she thought she might as well go back to her husband because she would be better off with him than she is now. Still not realizing that it was him who gave her everything she had. This is what God said Israel would do. And then she would be stripped of everything and he would allow her to become a public shame. Yet, God tells Hosea to buy back his wife and to love her even though she was unfaithful to him, because this is what he would do for Israel. God took back Israel.
Hosea 3:1
Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Irael, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
So hosea went and bought back Gomer for 15 pieces of silver, an Homer of barley, and a half omer of barley.
This is not the kind of love we are accustomed to. But God's love is not dependent on us. His love is an unconditional love.
He bought us back when we were unfaithful to him.
God's love is a pursuing selfless love.
I was thinking about my husband, when we were dating. He was always pursuing me. Even when I went a little sideways, he never stopped chasing after me. I remember after we got married just looking back and feeling like I didn't deserve his love, because of everything I put him through; and I put him through ALOT. But he never stopped no matter how hard it became. And it makes me love him even more, because I know that when I didn't deserve his love he still showed it to me.
Ephesians 5:25 says Husbands love your wives, even as christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.
Christ is always pursuing, always reaching. To me this is saying that husbands should always pursue their wives because that's the kind of love Christ loves us with. A pursuing love. He selflessly laid down his life for us. God has nothing to gain by dying. And he didnt do it based on wether we deserved it or not. He didnt have to do it, but he did it for love. Because God is love.
When we begin to see Christ as someone who loves us and keeps reaching for us no matter how we may fail, we can really begin to embrace Romans 8:35-39.
Paul understood that God's love isn't dependent on us. When we understand that his love isn't dependent on our mistakes or circumstances, it makes it easy to get back up when we fall.
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