The Greatest Love Story

On Sunday mornings, I look out over a sea of faces. We have doctors and lawyers, teachers and professional athletes … and in the same rows, addicts, homeless and jobless. None of them are exempt from the troubles and temptations of life. Nor can they be separated from the endless love of God.

God has no criteria for whom He chooses to love. And just like He illustrates in the story of Hosea and Gomer, He loves us at our lowest. He reaches for us when we run from Him, and He takes us back even when our sins have put us on display.

I love how simply The Message translates Romans 8:39, “I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.”

Gomer’s actions seemed unthinkable – the rescued wife of a preacher who returned to harlotry. But God told Hosea, “Go again.” Go to her again, love her again, buy her back for a price and be her husband. And this is how God loves us. We are the bride of Christ and He paid a price for us while we were still sinners.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 8:5 NKJV).

I don’t know about you, but I am deeply grateful God’s love for me is not contingent upon my performance or good works. What a beautiful reminder in the book of Hosea, Jesus saves us not only out of obedience, but because he genuinely loves us. A love so tested and true that nothing in this world, or the next, could separate us from it.

Today, I challenge you. Quit hiding behind your troubles and mistakes and look for God’s door of hope in your situation. You can’t escape His love and He won’t give up on you!

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