By Chris Martin
By God’s grace, I have never really had to fear for my life; but, in the last year, I’ve become more aware of my own mortality than I have ever been before. In 2020 I turned 30-years-old, welcomed a daughter into the world, secured a life insurance policy, and watched the world lurch through an isolating global pandemic of sickness and anxiety. It’s easy to feel invincible when you’re in your twenties, but the year I turned thirty the Lord reminded me of a deep truth that Matthew McCullough identifies in the introduction to his book Remember Death, “No one gets out of life alive.”
When I am tempted to fear death, or even just the inevitable, gradual physical breakdown of my body, I am drawn to God’s Word where I am reminded that the life I enjoy today is not my own and that, though it will end one day, it is only the beginning.
In the book of Hosea, God’s unfailing, unconditional love is on full display. Amidst His peoples’ incessant unfaithfulness and foolish pursuits, God does not relent in His pursuit of His people. As God pronounces judgment on His people in today’s reading, the invitation to return remains. He says, “I will heal their apostasy; I will freely love them, for my anger will have turned from him” (Hosea 14:4).
In this book we’ve seen both that God will judge His people in accordance with their sin, and that He will rescue them. God’s declaration makes clear that sin is not without its consequences, but also that He will scoop His people into salvation. God loves you and me even when we sin and choose any number of lesser, broken gods over the true Lord. He loved His foolish, wayward people Israel, as we’ve seen throughout Hosea, and He loves us, too.
We are promised that the God who saved His rebellious people in Hosea will save us when we repent of our rebellion and rely on the Son of God to save us from ourselves. God is faithful when we are not. Though death awaits us all whenever our Lord sees fit, life awaits us, too. Life as it was meant to be—life with God.
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