May 9

Hosea 6:1‑3
 
“Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for He hath torn, and He will heal us: He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us: in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we Follow on to know the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth” — Hosea 6:1-31Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. 2After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. 3Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. (Hosea 6:1‑3).
IT is a great thing to realize that human sin and failure do not alter the love of God toward those who have offended Him so grievously. He loves us, not on account of anything meritorious that Ile sees in us, but simply because of what lie is in Himself. “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 168He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (1 John 4:8)
16And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)). This is not what He does, but what He is. It is His very nature. And loving us, He has Himself provided a way for our forgiveness in the first place, when we come to Him as needy sinners, and our restoration, when we fail, even after we have known His grace in this initial sense. We wrong Him if we doubt His love or if we give in to despair when our awakened consciences accuse us of base ingratitude and colossal iniquity in having offended against so holy a God and so loving a Saviour.
“God of the shadows, lead me through the gloaming,
Arch the long road with fretted vaults of green;
Send but a gleam to tell me I am homing,
Let not Thy face be seen.
Fold well Thy cloak of gentlest pity round me.
Keep Thy bright secrets till the morning break;
Why should I seek Thee, Lord, when Thou hast found me,
And know’st the way I take?”