Do You Love God or Just What You Hope God Will Give You?
Everyone loves something. The real question is what you give that love to. A closer look at the book of Hosea reveals a picture of love, betrayal, and pursuit that speaks directly to how we relate to God today.
What Does Hosea Chapter 3 Actually Say?
Hosea 3 reads as a firsthand account. God gives Hosea one of the most difficult commands imaginable: go back and love the woman who betrayed you.
“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.'” – Hosea 3:1
The word “love” appears multiple times in a single verse. That repetition is not accidental. Love is at the center of this story, and it raises a question worth sitting with: what do you actually give your love to?
Why Did Israel Keep Chasing Other Gods?
There is a small detail tucked into Hosea 3:1 that is easy to overlook. Israel turned to other gods and loved their sacred raisin cakes. It sounds strange at first, but the meaning runs deep.
Israel was not worshiping Baal or other gods out of genuine devotion. They were chasing what they thought those gods could provide. Grain. Fertility. Health. Prosperity. They were essentially saying, “Give us what we want, and we will give you our worship.”
And here is the uncomfortable part: Israel had not completely abandoned God. They still showed up. They still went through the motions. But their hearts were divided because they were more in love with what they hoped to receive than with the One they were supposed to be devoted to.
The “Sacred Raisin Cakes” in Your Own Life
Think about a wedding reception. The cake is incredible. Now imagine the bride becomes so obsessed with the cake that she starts crashing other weddings just to get more. Eventually, she is marrying strangers on the street, not out of love, but just to get cake at the reception.
That is exactly what Israel was doing with their worship. They were not committed to these other gods. They were committed to what those gods seemed to offer. And the craving kept growing even as the satisfaction kept shrinking.
C.S. Lewis captured this idea in The Screwtape Letters, where a senior demon advises giving a person “an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure.” The goal is to take a soul and give nothing in return. That is what Israel was experiencing, and it is what happens whenever we chase substitutes for God.
Do You Love God or What You Hope God Will Give You?
This is the central question worth asking honestly. It is easy to say we love God. But what happens when He does not deliver what we were hoping for? Do we stay? Or do we start looking for another God who might offer better cake?
Health. A good marriage. Children. Financial stability. These are not bad things to want. But if our worship is conditional on receiving them, then we are not really worshiping God. We are worshiping the gifts and using God as a means to get them.
God sees through that. And remarkably, He pursues us anyway.
What Did It Cost Hosea to Love Again?
When God told Hosea to go get His wife back, Hosea did not just send a message. He went to her, found her, and paid to bring her home.
“So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, ‘You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.'” – Hosea 3:2-3 N
There were two costs here. The first was the obvious, physical cost of paying to bring her back. The second was the cost you cannot see: the humiliation, the vulnerability, the risk of rejection, the anger that had to be set aside in order to pursue someone who had walked away.
Grace does not operate from a distance. Grace closes the gap.
How Does Hosea Point to Jesus?
At the end of Hosea 3, there is a prophecy. Israel will go through a long period of exile, without a king, without sacrifice, without security. But eventually, they will return and seek the Lord and a king from David’s line.
Hosea was pointing forward more than a thousand years to Jesus. Someone from David’s line would come to bring the wanderers home.
Just as Hosea paid a price and endured humiliation to pursue Gomer, Jesus entered into our exile. He did not stand at a distance and call out for us to come back. He crossed the distance Himself. He took on flesh, entered our world, and paid the ultimate cost, not just physically on the cross, but through rejection, suffering, and humiliation, all to bring a wandering people home.
What the Gospel Actually Says About You
The good news is not simply that you are a sinner who needs to try harder. The good news is that God created you in His image, you wandered toward other things, and He refused to let that be the end of the story.
Paul puts it plainly:
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.” – Ephesians 2:4-5 New International Version (NIV)
Dead. Wandering. Chasing things that could not satisfy. That is the condition Paul describes. And into that condition, God moved toward us. Not because we earned it. Not because we found our way back. But because of His great love.
What Is the Greatest Gift God Wants to Give You?
It is worth asking: what if the greatest gift God wants to give you is God Himself?
Not a healed relationship. Not financial breakthrough. Not the answer to the prayer you have been praying for years. Those things matter, and God cares about them. But they are not the point. He is the point.
If you received God and nothing else, would that be enough?
That question cuts to the heart of what it means to truly love God rather than simply love what we hope He will provide.
Life Application
This week, take an honest look at what is driving your relationship with God. Are you pursuing Him because of who He is, or because of what you are hoping He will do for you? Identify one area of your life where your devotion to God has been conditional, where you have quietly said, “God, if you give me this, I will follow you.” Bring that to Him honestly in prayer, and ask Him to help you love Him for Himself, not for the gifts.
Ask yourself these questions:
- If God never answered my most urgent prayer, would I still worship Him?
- Am I pursuing God, or am I pursuing what I think God can give me?
- If I received God and nothing else, would that truly be enough for me?
God did not pursue you from a distance. He crossed every gap to reach you. The invitation this week is to stop chasing substitutes and turn toward the One who has already been pursuing you all along.