Hosea: What Kind of Love Does God Have for Us?

Hosea 1:1-9 (NLT) 

Many of us cannot understand God’s kind of love unless it is illustrated.

1. The Love of God revealed through Hosea reveals the depth of God’s love, faithfulness, loyalty and commitment to us

Hosea 3:1-2 (NLT) 

    Then the Lord said to me, "Go and get your wife again. Bring her back to you and love her, even though she loves adultery. For the Lord still loves Israel even though the people have turned to other gods, offering them choice gifts."

    [2] So I bought her back for fifteen pieces of silver and about five bushels of barley and a measure of wine.

2. The Love of God is an unconditional love that takes the initiative and first step towards us, even before we decide to love Him.

1 John 4:10 (NLT) 

    This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Hosea 2:5 (NLT) 

    For their mother [Gomer] is a shameless prostitute and became pregnant in a shameful way. She said, 'I'll run after other lovers and sell myself to them for food and drink, for clothing of wool and linen, and for olive oil.'

Hosea 2:3, 6, 11, 14 (NIV)

    …I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst…Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way…I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days--all her appointed feasts…"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.

3.  God restores us by bringing us into a spiritual desert to enclose us for a while so that in the absence of other temptations, God can restore us

Hosea 2:15 (NLT) 

    I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.

Hosea 2:19-20 (NLT) 

    I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. [20] I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as Lord.