Jesus loves. Jesus teaches love. Jesus is love. No one else teaches love like Jesus. We follow him and so we learn to love like him. It is often a challenge.
Let’s begin with a clear definition of love. Love is a decision to provide the very best for another even at a sacrificial cost. The words of argue that love is not self-centered, it does not “seek its own” (vs. 5). When we decide to love someone we are deciding to give of our self even if it’s costly. Jesus and his death for us demonstrates that decision.
It is not hard to love those who love us. We happily give them anything they need regardless of the cost. It’s a two way street in which both sides give to make the relationship work. Parents give to their children and receive love from them, friends love and support one another. It is hard not to love someone who loves us.
Love is not an emotion; it is not a feeling. Love is a decision. Ideally, love is an irrevocable. We do not fall out of love with someone accidentally. It is a commitment and a vow which must be taken seriously. It is heartbreaking to see friendships and even families destroyed because someone changed their mind. I am glad that our Father is not so fickle. He loved the world, sinners all, and continued to act on that decision through the death of his only son ().
The picture of perfect love is seen in Jesus. Consider for a moment what we bring into our relationship with Jesus. Sin, wickedness, deceit, rebellion and weakness all define our lives. Yet, in spite of all of that darkness, Jesus just keeps on loving. Even after we have become part of his bride, the church, we still fail. We are the self-centered spouse who seeks our own needs and desires above those of our Lord. But still, Jesus keeps on loving. We are the ones who pattern our lives after our own wants rather than the wants of the one who died for us. Still Jesus loves.
Hosea was a prophet of ancient days used by God to call Israel back to the loving relationship they had enjoyed with Jehovah. But Hosea was also an object lesson. God required him to marry a “wife of whoredom” and to have children by her (). She was not the kind of woman a man would bring home to his parents. She certainly was not the kind of woman a man would want to marry. Don’t miss the lesson here. We are the whore. We are the one no one wants – except Jesus. In spite of our ugliness and sin, he marries us anyway and lavishes his love on us.
Hosea’s story is not over. After he marries this woman she cheats! She returns to her life of immorality and Hosea is commanded to go and bring her back (). One can hardly understand. But God is teaching us about his love. He called to us when we were sinners () and continues to call us even when we return to our sinfulness. Notice ; “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” For Jesus, love is not three strikes and you are out. It is an everlasting commitment to his bride, the church.
I am so thankful for his love. When I think of where I have been and where I am now I rejoice in the purity and patience of his love. I am the wife taken from whoredoms. I am the unfaithful one that he so gently retrieves from sinfulness.
What is love? Jesus!
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (ESV)
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)
2 When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” (ESV)
3:1 And the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. (ESV)
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (ESV)
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (ESV)
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