MY REDEEMER'S LOVE

 

REDEEMING LOVE

Books have been written titled Redeeming Love, movies have been made; based on the biblical book of Hosea, Hosea was a prophet that God said "Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from God." And in obedience Hosea did just that and so begins the account of a marriage and a wife who is unfaithful. The book of  Hosea is not about his love life or Gomer, his wife's. No it's about the love life with God and His people.

You see we all are a recipient of His Redeeming Love. From the moment of our salvation and all that comes after that moment. Most Christians are not always faithful to God and their relationship; there are times we run from our walk with God to seek the pleasures of the world, this is spiritual adultery. We reject God, and we reject Jesus because we don't consecrate our lives to Him. Perhaps we haven't matured enough to understand this, or because of some life experience we become angry with God and decide to walk our own path.

Oh but if it had not been for His Redeeming Love where would we be? For me I truly experienced His Redeeming Love in the very middle of my harlotry.

MY STORY, GOD'S GRACE!

My marriage was a disaster, falling apart after 18 years of marriage, I was now 38 years old. I had surrendered my life to Jesus 11 years earlier. My heart was broken, I felt unloved and destroyed. So I ran from God just like I did when I was 9 years old and my father died. Divorce was unavoidable, because I no longer desired to work at my marriage, instead I began a time of looking for love in all the wrong faces. Truthfully, I wasn't really looking for love, I just wanted to feel pretty and wanted again. But you see I couldn't play the harlot and walk with Jesus, so I stepped out of fellowship and pursued a foreign lifestyle that placed me in all the wrong places, sent me to psychiatric care, and would have taken my life except, God wouldn't let me go. He held on to me even as I wandered deeper and deeper into the world filled with sin. Like the prodigal son, Jesus spoke about, God let me go off, but He kept a watch on me that would not allow me to die. Time passed; 12 years exactly, I had so missed going to worship, but I couldn't because if I did I could not bear the conviction of my sin, so I chose my sin over my God.

Then one day God brought a freshly saved young woman to work where I did. He sit her down near me, and she was so on fire for Jesus, I missed that fire in my life. We became friends, I listened as she talked and I remembered what I had walked away from. So I began my journey back to my Father, feeling unworthy, to even be seen. As I began this journey, that took approximately a year, I began to pray for God to help me, I said "God, how can You still love me after all I have said, all I have done, how can You love me?" And He kept showing me that He did love me, but because I had such a hate for myself I couldn't see it. So one day I cried out "Show me You love me?" I was then 50 years old and I can say with great conviction I am now 74 years old and every single day God has showed me He loves me.

When I truly repented and turned from my sin and ran to Him. All I had done during those years were forgiven and forgotten, wiped clean. But it would take me years to forgive myself and to stop hating myself, for all I had done. But in time I was able to love who I had become, and delight in who I am in Christ. 

In Hosea chapter 6, there is a call to repentance

Hosea 6:1 Come, let us return to the LORD; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.

You see in all those 12 years my heart was under great conviction, I was broken spiritually. I was walking in my flesh, seeking after all the wrong things, I was out of fellowship yet God was still protecting me. Many many years passed this time, I saw how things happened by my own hand and even about 10 years ago in a moment if I had not listened to God's voice I would have died. So I asked God "Why did you spare my life, those times?" I heard His voice say "I had something better for you." God will always align His word with scripture:

Jeremiah 29:11-13  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

GOD'S REDEEMING LOVE;

Not only saved me at 27, but let me go at 38, yet would not let me die, at 50 He met me as I ran to Him, wrapped me in His arms and all of heaven rejoiced that this prodigal daughter had returned to her Father's house.

It is never too late to come home, God is waiting and watching and ready to wrap his arms around you. Such a Redeeming Love!