A Longsuffering God

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” Augustine

  Popular Christian fiction author, Francine Rivers, shares that God used the Old Testament book of Hosea to bring about a radical spiritual transformation in her life. Though raised in a religious home, Francine didn’t come to Christ until she was nearly forty. Prior to committing her life to Christ she was an author and wrote historical romance novels. Yet, after she became a believer, she found that her writing: “died a swift death–not because I chose not to write, but because everything I wrote made no sense.  I struggled.  Writing was my ‘safe place,’ it was my ‘identity’…It took three years for the Lord to get through my thick skull and show me how my priorities were upside down.  I could almost hear Him saying, ‘You say you love Me, but you don’t even know who I AM.’  Sadly true.  For most of my life, I longed for a Savior, but I didn’t want a LORD.  I never bothered reading the Bible.”

  As she began reading the Bible, immersing herself in God’s Word, her death grip on her writing loosened. Finally, she let it go completely and without regret. Jesus became the center of her life. It was the book of Hosea that God used to break through her last walls of resistance. Later, she would write a bestselling novel based on Hosea, Redeeming Love. She describes it as “…the book of my heart. It is my confession of how I viewed and treated God before I knew Him, my yearning for a Savior and my deepest, life-long need for a loving, all-knowing LORD to direct my steps.”

  Today we’re beginning a several week study, Relentless Love, from the book of Hosea. If you asked most Christians to find the Hosea in their Bibles, they’d have to check the index. The most minor thing about what’s known as the Minor Prophets is their place in the life of the contemporary church. Many have never read the Minor Prophets and most have read or studied Hosea (it takes about half an hour to read it).

  It’s common for even Christians to develop their own view of God. Yet, the only way to truly know who God is to read God’s description of Himself as found in His Word. As we make our way through Hosea, we’re going to discover several truths about God. First, and primary…

  God is so longsuffering. I’m so thankful that He is. Being longsuffering is a little different from being patient. While longsuffering is similar to patience, it has more to do with the longevity of patience. It’s patience with muscles. The Bible uses a word for longsuffering that means “forbearance or the disposition to endure long under offenses.” God’s longsuffering is an expression of His unrestrained love and grace! The idea is that if God followed the desire of His heart immediately, He would bring an end to all sin, suffering and this world…including us.  

  As Hosea illustrates God’s longsuffering, it’s a shocking book! God commands iHIsHHis prophet to marry someone who is going to be unfaithful to him. It was a marriage doomed for heartbreak before the “I do.” But it doesn’t end there. Hosea is to forgive and restore his wife, and marriage.  

  Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessings is one of my favorite hymns. Robert Robinson wrote the words for it when he was only 22. I love the poetry, which so often describes my own journey of faith: “O to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be.”

  Robinson became a pastor in England, but that wasn’t the end of the story. At the end of his life, Robinson had wandered away from God again. The story goes that one day he was riding in a coach with a woman, who was humming the hymn that he wrote many years before, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” She asked him if he was familiar with it and he replied, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.” The last verse described his own heart that had abandoned his relationship with God.  

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love.

  Too often that’s my heart and no doubt, your heart. Hosea is God’s reminder to us that He loves us even when we run away from Him to chase other lovers. As Hosea honestly deals with the nation of Israel’s sin, idolatry and the promise of God’s chastening, he repeatedly draws out the gracious nature of God who continues to plead with those who have repeatedly gone after other lovers. From this message of judgment, the bright beam of God’s love and faithfulness breakthrough.

  Hosea reminds us of God’s nature. Our God is a forgiving and pursuing God who chases after His people even in their sin. At the same time, we’re confronted with the horror of sin and its consequences.

  This book teaches us that we all, like Israel, are spiritual Gomers (Hosea’s wife). We too easily give ourselves to other loves and idols of the heart. We minimize our sin and think of our sin as doing bad things, or saying wrong words or thinking evil thoughts. The book of Hosea teaches us that sin is first a matter of the heart and that sin is not just evil, it’s spiritual adultery. It’s only when we see ourselves as spiritual adulterers that we see the heinousness of our sin and yet the overwhelming love of God.

  All roads lead back to our hearts. It doesn’t matter whether we’re fighting against anger, addiction, doubt or discontent. The book of Hosea illustrates the truth confessed by David: “Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4). Our greatest need isn’t behavior modification or an attitude adjustment, it’s a heart transplant (2 Cor. 5:17). I don’t like seeing the evil sin in my own heart. Do you? Yet, I know if I don’t surrender and allow Jesus to heal me, sin will destroy me.

  Hosea repeatedly confronts us with the noxiousness of our sin, yet the overwhelming longsuffering and grace of God! It’s a message we need! God’s loving call doesn’t cease even as He pronounces judgment, His love beckons us again and again. The question is: Will we heed His call?

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