Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and lyrics from Steve Green singing … Find Us Faithful … poignantly singing of lives in faithfulness to an ever faithful God, who love sustains us day-by-day, … FOREVER!
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Highlight Verse[s]: Hosea 6:3 [NLT] …
3 Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know Him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of the dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.
… To know God is to love Him for His always faithful grace.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Hosea 6:1-6 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK ...
… Hosea’s love for his unfaithful wife, Gomer, is a picture of God’s love for His unfaithful people.
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Reference Passage #1: … Lamentations 3:22-23 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… His faithfulness and love are seen - always for His faithful ones - being new every morning.
Reference Passage #2 : … John 3:16 [NLT] …
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. …”
… God’s love is eternal … once given, it never dies.
Reference Passage #2 : … John 3:16 [NLT] …
9 But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
… God’s faithfulness will ALWAYS cleanse the hearts of the repentant faithful.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Amy Boucher Pye, used a personal reference to teach on our faithfulness to God’s unrelenting love. The ODB author wrote: Needing a break, I went for a walk in the nearby park. As I headed down the path, a burst of green caught my attention. Out of the mud appeared shoots of life that in a few weeks would be cheerful daffodils, heralding spring and the warmth to come. We had made it through another winter!
As we read through the book of Hosea, it can feel, in parts, like an unrelenting winter. For the Lord gave this prophet the unenviable task of marrying an unfaithful woman as a picture of the Creator’s love for His people, Israel (1:2–3). Hosea’s wife, Gomer, broke their wedding vows, but Hosea welcomed her back, yearning that she would love him devotedly (3:1–3). So too the Lord desires that we love Him with a strength and commitment that won’t evaporate like the morning mist.
The OT book of Hosea is a poignant and powerful testament and picture of God’s faithfulness and His love for a people, who, throughout history, have been unfaithful in our love and devotion to Him. Do any of you, who read here with me, find yourself to be more like Gomer than Hosea? But our God is forever the Hosea in our lives, isn’t He?
As Jeremiah testified (in Lam. 3:22-23), His mercies of forgiveness are new every morning; and His love (as Jesus testified in John 3:16) is eternal. …
And like the daffodils bloom each spring after the winter [see photo], God’s love blooms in the hearts of any/all who come to Him, repenting of our sin, to be cleansed by His blood (see 1st John 1:9). May His grace bloom in our hearts today!
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … As Steve Green sings, let my love be ever faithful to Your grace, … which blooms in our hearts as does the beauty of the daffodils. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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