Overwhelming Love

To continue on the theme of Love... since God has continued to speak to me about it. It's cool, and so awesome. Awesome not in the sense that it can become known (as another word for amazing) but awesome in the sense that it has filled me with awe. I'm going through the minor prophets at the moment, still in Hosea. Hope to have finished them by late February, early March, but will see, because I don't just want to read them, I want them to affect me.

'When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.' - Hosea 9v.10a

So here I found an image of how much God loves us. Grapes in a desert? It's crazy - out of all that barreness, a grape. How precious would that grape be to you? I would get so excited about that grape, I would love that grape. That grape would be so precious to me. And that's how previous we are to Christ! Like a grape, a juicy grape, in the midst of a desert. Imagine how precious it would be, a great find! Yeah... just like that. (And then we come to figs... which I don't like. But I remind myself that God made them so God likes them seeing that God created them and said they are good. So we're precious like that too!)

'But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved. ' - Hosea 9v.10b

How much must the people of Israel broken God's heart when they turned their back on him? When that people who were to God as precious as a grape in the midst of a desert turned their back on Him who chose them. It must have broken His heart! But as I've read through Hosea, I have had fresh revelation of God's grace. As much as Israel turned their back, as much as God, through Hosea, gave warning after warning, when they turned back to Him, He had grace for them. It has struck me that His grace is sufficient. And I don't want to break God's heart. I won't turn my back. I love Jesus. How can I?

To wrap it up (!) I've found a real overwhelming love in Hosea. A love for God's people. And because Jesus died and rose again, we are His people, and that overwhelming love is for us. I find that totally awesome.