Today is Valentine’s Day and love is in the air! As much as I love my husband, God loves me more! In fact, our Bible verse today is taken from Hosea 2:19, “I will take you to be my wife forever. I will take you to be my wife in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion.” (CSB) To give a little background on this verse, God has asked Hosea to take a harlot for a wife. This marriage was to be a representation of Israel’s relationship with God. He loved Israel, but they were unfaithful to Him in many ways, just as Hosea’s wife was unfaithful to him. Hosea 1: 2 relates God’s instruction to Hosea, “When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, he said this to him, “Go and marry a woman of promiscuity, and have children of promiscuity, for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity by abandoning the Lord.” (CSB)
Despite Israel’s unfaithfulness, God still loved her, just as Hosea loved his wife, Gomer. No matter how many times she would run to other lovers, Hosea always took her back. Hosea is an example of how God loves us. The Bible says that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8) and “We love, because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19) We were unfaithful to Him, and yet He loved us, He loved us first!
God’s love for us is an example of what married love should be like. We are to give each other totally to the other. Their needs come first before our own. God uses the example of marriage to explain our relationship with Jesus. He is the Bridegroom and we, as Believers, are His Bride. We are to be spotless and pure. His love for us is an example of how we are to love each other. Marriage is a covenant between God, the Bride, and Groom. It isn’t just a piece of paper that says we are married, it is a contract, a covenant, promising to love, honor, respect, obey, and be totally devoted to each other and to God. Marriage consists of three people, God as the Head of the family, the husband is to be the head of the wife, loving her and being submissive, obedient, and under the leadership of God; and the wife is to honor, respect, obey, and be submissive to not only her husband, but also to God.
My husband is such an awesome man. He loves God with all his heart and carries that love for God to me. He realizes that my first love MUST be God and he comes second, just as I recognize that his first love MUST be God and I come second. As we love each other, we in turn love God, and together, we serve Him. When we faulter in our walk with the Lord, God loves us still, and draws us back to Himself, just as Hosea pleaded for Gomer to return to him. No matter how many times we turn our back on God or choose to be rebellious, God still yearns for us to come back to Him and love Him just as He loves us.
God is the total embodiment of love, the Bible says, “God is love” (I John 4:8). Love describes God, it is His total essence. The description of love is God! He is the ultimate example of pure love. He is our example! We are to pattern ourselves after Him.
God’s love to us is Agape love, that unconditional, selfless, sacrificial kind of love that Jesus showed as He hung on the cross for our sins. That is the kind of love we are to have for each other – selfless, unconditional, sacrificial, giving ourselves for the other.
As we celebrate Valentine’s Day with our spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends, remember to love as God loves us.
donnasmusings 