“The love of the Lord” (Hosea 3:1)

Ever since God adopted you as His child, He’s cared for you. He fed and clothed you, even when you complained and questioned His love. He never stopped giving you what you needed even when you longed to return to your old life. Despite your ungratefulness, His grace not only covered your rebellion, but gradually and consistently taught you His ways, so now you cooperate with Him consciously and on purpose. You used to obey with reservations, but now you obey Him because you trust He knows what’s best. 

 At times you resisted Him, but now you can honestly say, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” (Psalms 23:4). Now you know from experience the same God who loved and pardoned you will never stop loving and pardoning you. 

 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35-39). 

 “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. May my meditation be sweet to Him; I will be glad in the Lord” (Psalms 104:33-34).