Two Sides Of The Same Coin

God didn’t just use Hosea to speak a message to Israel, he also used Hosea’s life to demonstrate God’s unending love his people.

Hosea was told to marry Gomer, a prostitute. And just as God had said she would, Gomer would chase after other men, was repeatedly unfaithful to Hosea, and gave birth to children conceived by other men. This was what God had called Hosea to.

God was demonstrating what his love for us is like. The Jesus Storybook Bible refers to it as God’s “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love”. And that’s how he wanted Hosea to love Gomer, with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love. Why? Because that’s how God loved unfaithful Israel. After all Israel had done, after all we’ve done, God’s love is so deep that he goes after his people.

As Hosea would buy back Gomer from the slave market, so God would pay the price, the life of his Son, Jesus, to bring us back to himself.

Tomorrow we’ll walk through the life of Hosea with our kids here (in an age-appropriate way). We’ve spent many weeks talking about Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, but this week we pause to focus more on God’s deep, unending love for us. As our kids work through this story this week, talk about both sides of the coin: our unfaithfulness to God and his deep love for us. Kids (and adults too) can sometimes be weighed down by the knowledge of their sin. Though sin is a big deal, we all need to be reminded that for those whose life is found in him, Jesus has paid the price for our sin. Freedom is found in the One we call Lord!